Bam!  

Whatever hit my car — hit hard. It came out of nowhere. With no car ahead of me and only a couple of branches overhead, I couldn’t figure out where it came from.

But, what I did see, clear as a day, was the ding on my windshield.  What hit, left its mark.

Many of us, get hit this way. Something comes from out-of-nowhere and leaves a mark.

Conflicts. Bam!
Arguments. Bam!
Defeat. Bam!
Issues. Financial problems. Health issues. Rejection. Bam! Bam! Bam!

Any way you cut it, the damage feels real. It tears up your insides. It leaves you with regret. It makes you horribly sad. Now you’re looking around you, saying, “How did I end up here? Why is it so hard?”

I understand those feelings. What I also understand, is this:

“My God is my protection and with Him I am safe. He protects me like a shield; He defends me and keeps me safe.” (Ps. 18:2)

You know, I can’t help but think how that rock, or whatever it was that hit me, without a barrier, could have hit me far worse. It could have ripped open my leg or slammed into my face. It could have sent me to the hospital…that is…if a shield was not present. But a shield was present: a windshield.

God is our shield. We may not always see His cover, but His protection is real.

God shields us in ways we cannot conceive or perceive. As a Father, He protects His young. As a Shepherd, He leaves the 99 to chase down the one at-risk child. As the Deliverer, he invaded the world to save us from eternal death.

Yes, there is pain for a moment but our lifetime reward is greater. The damage appears bad, but God knows how to, miraculously, make good come — out of the horribly bad. The burden and pain is a bummer, but God prevents us from living eternally bummed-out. He works in these ways…

Just because you can’t see what God is doing, doesn’t mean He isn’t protecting, saving, helping or equipping you. It doesn’t mean that God’s best plan isn’t in motion. Just because you feel down, doesn’t mean you are really down. Christ says you are seated in the heavenlies, with Him (Eph. 2:6).

Your issues are not a summation of your spiritual worthiness. Break that lie right now. You are not summed-up by what is happening to you.

You are loved and you are protected. Kept and held. Wanted and chosen.

God is your shield. He is over you and all around you. He defends you, keeps you and guards you.

Rest encouraged. Take hope. God has you.

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Daniel went straight into the lion’s den — and survived.

Joseph was sold by his brothers into slavery —  only to later be made ruler of Egypt.

Job got almost everything taken away — only to end up MORE than restored.

“After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before. . .

The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.” (Job. 42:10,12)

What you face today is not indicative of what God will do tomorrow. Some of you are facing battles of epic proportions. Giants that look stronger, bigger, and badder than anything you’ve ever faced. Issues that look like they will tumult your body.

While risking that I sound callous, I say, “So what?”

So what — that the people look mighty? So what — that the barrier looks huge? So what — that it seems impossible? So what — that you lost everything?

The God above it all can restore it all — in a split second. Never doubt that for a second. He can. He has. He will take care of you. He is: Provider, Rescuer, Redeemer, Restorer and Deliverer, and those facts will never change. It is who He is, how He operates and what He does. God is faithful.

I believe, God is not as concerned about what you see as you are. For He knows who He is and that His nature is true, always.

Does this mean you won’t experience pain for a moment? No. It means: “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!” (2 Cor. 4:17)

You will see a greater glory, no matter what. So don’t lose hope. Don’t give up. And don’t let your weak knees knock you out. God is faithful.

—

On another note: I need your advice?

Do you live in the Charlotte area? I am thinking about putting together a prayer/worship/speaking event in the area.

Reply back to this email with:

1. Would you want to attend?
2. Would you prefer a full-day or half-day?
3. Weekend or weeknight?
4. Any ideas on what you would like this event to include?
5. Any other blog posts, subjects or ideas that you have for me?

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I heard the scream, but I didn’t react. Here is why: it was a crying-wolf situation. Her brother is always going in her room and she is always screaming at him. If I haven’t heard it once, I’ve heard it one-thousand times. I figured it was her yelling at him, and then at me, again. So, I kept on talking to my husband.

It wasn’t but a few minutes later my son shouted from the top of the stairs, “Mom. It is serious.”

I ran up there like the wind. And, there was my daughter, hair-attached to a dancing ballerina figure going round and round in her musical jewelry box. Her hair was getting eaten up in the circling wires of a rotating doll.

My girls’ face looked terrified. As if she was wondering, “Is this ballerina going to eat my whole head up?”

I got some scissors and, while she was still screaming, I cut her hair, where the demanding plastic figurine was devouring it.

Then she looked at me, with rejection in her eyes, and said, “I called for you, mommy. I screamed for you…and you didn’t come.”

My stomach sank into my chest (which makes no sense at all, but somehow this is exactly how it felt in the moment). The last thing I wanted my daughter to think was: Mommy is not there for me.

But, she was right. I wasn’t there for her.

Maybe people weren’t there for you either. Maybe they didn’t come when you needed them. They didn’t listen, when all you needed was a listening ear. They didn’t side with you, even though we were right. You were left screaming and crying, and rejected. Calling out for help, yet, fending for yourself.

I wish I could go back to turn-back time. But, I can’t. What I did is as done as done-is-done.

But, what I can do is trust that – in the gap of me being a good mom, God is a better dad.

Sometimes, in people letting us down, we can come to see how God holds us up. I pray my daughter might come to this realization. Because, I will never perfectly be there for her. I will never give her all she needs.

And, neither will people ever perfectly be there for us.

But, God always will be. God will always be perfectly there for us, if we just turn our face towards Him. If we let Him be.

Why not invite in God’s healing today? Into those places and spaces where people let you down, abandoned you or rejected you? There is a Father, much better than any earthly Father or Mother, who wants to love you whole-again.

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As I entered the restaurant, what seemed to be a million people scuffled around trying to find a table. Was there a table for me?

I spotted a row of empty tables lined up a corner. Great. There still is a place. People must have transitioned from these tables, after breakfast. So, I pulled what seemed like a 50-lb table away from the rest.

The restaurant was filling and filling, fast. I felt so grateful to have a place to sit. Adjusting my stuff, I heard someone call out loudly in the restaurant, “Excuse me.” I didn’t lookup. They couldn’t be talking to me.

Then, I heard it again. “Excuse me, mam!” I looked up, everyone staring at me.

“That table is reserved. You cannot sit there.” He screamed from a counter 20-feet away.

You are not good enough for that table.

Embarrassed, I stood. “Busted,” I hated that there wasn’t a “reserved” sign on the table. Caught, he just went back to his work. Wrong, I put my head down and walked away.

I was not good enough to sit at “that table”.

Kind of like the time I wasn’t good enough to sit at the special table with the special people because they were a little bit higher and more important than me. Or, when I wanted to be known and the ‘known-figure’ had no idea who in the world I was. Or, when I desired to be acknowledged for what I gave and people walked right past me to the next girl, the more popular one.

There is no place for you, Kelly, at the table.

“The table is not reserved for you – and it never will be. Scram!”

I went in the bathroom and cried.

I cried out to God, “Father, why is this hurting me so much? Why am I being triggered by a stupid table?”

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.” Ps. 23:5 ESV

It’s as if God said, “Kelly, it is not the reserved tables, where you want to be, but the table with me – where you will become free.”

I went outside and sat in my car. There, I ate some nuts from my purse and let Jesus love me whole again. It wasn’t a seat in that restaurant that was most favored or blessed. It was that seat in my car. God met me there. He encouraged my heart.

God’s seat is our best seat. Where He speaks and loves us is the place of wild wholeness.

Prayer: God, I want to be where you are. Help me to stop looking at other people’s place-settings. What you give me is good. It is good for my soul, my walk and my wholeness. Thank you for leading me in your love. Thank you for setting me aside and marking my holy. Thank you that my hurts, healed, are now being used for your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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Post By:  Kara Lawler

My morning shuffle takes about an hour, and as soon as I pulled into the parking lot of my school this morning, my cell phone rang.  It was my son’s teacher.  Not even an hour after I dropped him off for the day and headed to my job as a high school English teacher, he felt sick and wanted to come home. He specifically asked for me to come and get him.

I made arrangements at school and turned around to pick him up.  He had to wait for me because my school is 30 minutes from his, and when I did finally get there, he seemed like he just wanted to come home.  He had a belly ache and whispered to me, “I missed you.”  And he grabbed my hand.

We got home and I poured him a 7-up and got him a snack and as it seemed, he wasn’t all that sick after all.  I tried not to be annoyed and it was then, as I fought back my feelings of frustration, that I noticed his hands.  As he sat, eating the bagel and muffin he asked for, I watched his hands. For some reason, I couldn’t stop staring at his hands.

His face is thinning out and his neck is elongating.  When he crawls into my lap, I can feel ribs where I once only felt the cushion of a baby, toddler, boy.  His arms and legs are starting to form muscles, and he started to lose teeth this past fall.  All of his pants are suddenly too short, and his hair, once blonde, is growing darker by the day.  All of those facts are reminders that he’s growing up and will be seven this summer.  And while his hands have changed and thinned out, too, they still look like the hands of a little boy–my little boy.

And as I sat, watching him eat his bagel and wondering if he had just been hungry after all, his hands reminded me that he still needs his mama.  And for whatever reason, he needed to hold my hand today when he really should have been at school.  And for most of the day, we sat like that–his hand in mine.   I think it was just what the doctor ordered.

Later, he wrote me a poem to thank me for coming to get him because he knows words are the greatest gift for me.  As he gave me the poem, he told me his belly felt so much better when he saw me.  This boy who holds my heart in the palm of his hand wrote:

“You say you love me.
I love you more.
I love you 100+44.
You are my best friend. ”

And you know what?  Today, he just needed me, I guess.  And while I know this can’t continue (and we had that talk), I’m glad he knows I will come to him in his time of need.  My vocation is to be his mother, to hold his hand like Jesus holds both of ours.  I will hold his hand.  And while my job isn’t to be his best friend, it’s my greatest honor that he thinks I am, in the here and now.  It’s days like today that I will treasure when these hands turn into the hands of a man.

There’s nothing holier than holding the hands of those we love and sitting with them when they need us. I hope you take some extra time to hold hands with someone you love for just a bit longer. Holy, free for the taking.

*If you liked this story about staying grounded in the moment, you might like her new book, EVERYWHERE HOLY: Seeing Beauty, Remembering Your Identity, and Finding God Right Where You Are, available now everywhere books are sold. www.everywhereholy.com

BIO:

Kara Lawler is a mother, wife, teacher who grew up in and lives again in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania, part of the Appalachian Mountain Range.  Kara’s work has been featured in many media outlets and some of her essays have been read millions of times.   She has been married to her high school sweetheart for close to 18 years.   After struggling with depression and anxiety, Kara remembered and accepted her identity—the person God made her.  Kara loves children, animals, and drinks her coffee on her porch every morning, no matter the weather, so she can admire the mountain view and listen to her rooster, Henry, greet the dawn.

I sat on the curb after practice, wondering, “Is mom ever going to come?” It was a particularly hard high school year. For one, my nose got hit with a field hockey stick. Even today, it sits a little crooked. And on this particular day, after all those sprints, shooting pains shot up my legs. I could hardly sit. Every position was agony. So with my teammates long gone, I moaned. Then, I replayed everything: the shots I didn’t make, the girls that were faster than me, and how I must have looked downright stupid.

Five minutes turned into twenty. Would she ever come?

Times of waiting are battles – the sense of “not knowing” compounds everything. Here, we tend to think, “If she isn’t there for me, God won’t be there either. I’m unworthy. I’ll be left behind. I brought on this problem. I’m stuck. Bound to fail. Surely, I’ll make a fool of myself again.”

I find it is here that old injuries, gut-wrenching feelings of abandonment, and age-old failures come back to attack. They often rob our faith.

Yet, I can’t help but wonder: If waiting times aren’t uncommon to Biblical men and women, why do I think they’ll be uncommon to me?

I mean, Sarah waited decades to have a baby. Blind people waited what probably felt like forever to be healed by Jesus. Mary waited while Jesus grew up. The other Mary waited for her brother Lazarus to get healed. Moses waited to get out of Egypt. Jesus waited decades to start His ministry, then about three years to die on the cross to defeat death.

Even in the worldly sense, waiting times have value. A delayed inheritance makes a son wise. A pregnant mother gives nine months time for the baby to grow. A toddler girl learns to swim before jumping in the deep end.

What if our times of waiting aren’t meant to torture us, but to grow us? And to prepare us for a greater land ahead?

“The land you are entering to take over is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you planted your seed and irrigated it by foot as in a vegetable garden… It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.” (Deuteronomy 11:10, 12, NIV)

The new land has new terrain. New obstacles. New preparation is needed for that place.

Consider, if you want to adventure through new terrain, you must prepare for it. If you’re traveling over rocky ground, you need the right wheels. Perhaps an SUV. If you are climbing a new mountain, you need to have a harness, and one you trust. Waiting gives us time to prepare to go to the places God has planned for us.

We can wait well. Here are few ways to do just that:

One: Remember the cross.

Encourage yourself by saying, “Jesus’ sacrifice fully covers me and now protects me from any assaulting words of the enemy. Even if I don’t do things perfectly, through the sacrifice of Christ, I am hidden in Christ.”

Two: Reconsider who you are.

Think, “I am a daughter of the most-High King. He knows how to take care of me.”

Three: Reestablish who God is.

Say, “God is on my side. He will pull through for me, help me and rescue me. I can trust Him.”

Four: Remind yourself: Waiting ground is faith-proving ground.

Choose to delight in and dwell on the little blessings God gives day-to-day.

Five: Reflect on the learnings.

Encourage yourself by saying, “God, teach me what I need to know through this time of wait, so I can grow in faith.”

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