Five Minute Friday :: Imagine

Imagine…

A world where there was only one voice.

Where there was a melody

that aching hearts could hear

and it was louder than the din of

a million sounds, sights, internet waves…

A place where you could be safe

to know an be known.
To love and be loved.

To find the truth really does
set you free.

Where the hearts of one speak to

the hearts of another…

Where you let go of your striving

and finally rest in the work

done for you.

Where the things of material value

lose their value; almost

as if your eyes cannot see them.

And the things that do not pass

away, that cannot be seen

Actually become your reality.

Where you shed the trappings of a life

that has you running frayed and frenzied

and embrace a peace that nothing,

and I mean NOTHING, can interrupt.

Imagine you never had that clinging

sense of guilt but lived in full

vision of your great need and the

Savior who has already supplied it all…

forever and ever and ever.

And when you see the people around you, you really

see them.  You can look into eyes and not

be afraid of what you might find

for what you yourself know in the depths of

your being is more than enough to meet it.

The Perfect Love that is promised, is here. 

It is casting out every fear and oh that my heart

and yours will be willing to embrace it like

we’ve always dreamed we could.

Five Minute Friday :: Imagine

Five Minute Friday :: Song

 

Go::

A la la here and a doo doo there

And an English song here and a

Hungarian there or even a Spanish one

these days as I prepare to use this language as I haven’t

in a year.

A worship song to pull us together and to Him in our car

as we wax the wheels and drive the roads

of our new life

It seems like song has woven together all of the

parts and the worlds that meet in

our family these days.

My daughter follows her namesake with a true

love for music.  She is a pro at

the Hungarian songs she has been learning in

school…her favorite performed on demand before family and friends

here and across the ocean is about a katicabogár {lady bug}.

And I think of the tears in my eyes as her class at school

joined hands and sang in a beautiful little clear voice harmony

a Hungarian folk song.  And I felt so alive, so very, very, very

blessed to call another country my home.

And I think about my sweet hubby who loves rap and

has fired himself up and our kids with this song.

How his laid back heart is stoked to life and he is

ready to walk the streets with the Gospel…calling out

in a humble yet persistent way, these above-all-others

words of Life…praying for someone ready to hear.

And I remember the song of Creation not sung in English or Hungarian or Greek

or Spanish or Hebrew…that song of creation the first words of man

in a language that the whole world could understand

And I remember this is the song that calls again to us

in between countries and cultures and a whole wide world

ready, oh-so-ready, yearning, breaking, longing for the song

of a God that will set them free…

Five Minute Friday :: Song

for all of the mothers who have lost…

It wasn’t a Mother’s Day sermon. 

In fact, Mother’s Day was celebrated last Sunday here in Hungary.

But I found myself thinking about my mother nonetheless.  As I held my six month-old chubby little joy in a room of nursing mothers of which I was the only native English speaker, I listened to the English-translated-into-Hungarian sermon.  We are working through the Gospel of John week by week and verse by verse and yesterday found us in John 4:46-54.  It is the story of the official’s son that Jesus heals without seeing or touching him.

Our pastor beautifully unpacked this man’s journey of faith.  He came to Jesus with a belief in miracles and left with a faith in the One who holds all things together by the word of his power.  His love for his son opened him up to the Son who would give his life as a ransom for many.  And he didn’t only return to a son who was well but to a household that he would lead to that same Savior he now claimed as His very own.

And I found that I could relate well to this official’s journey especially as it relates to the healing of my own mother.

In a time of re-birth of my own faith, I would say that my belief in miracles was strong {it still is}.  At that time, before my mother was diagnosed with stage four renal cell carcinoma, she suffered from a number of chronic ailments including a heart condition.  And I believed fervently that the Lord would heal her heart.

Then the cancer came.  And eight and a half months later she died.

I never lost my faith in God’s power to heal her.  But I also realized if my eyes were only on the miracle of physical healing I would have missed so much.

I would have missed the Savior who met us in that season making Himself and the eternal life He gives the very air we breathe.

I would have missed a faith that praises Him when it is hardest and finds the resilience to keep on keepin’ on no matter what we face.

I would have missed the greatest gift my mother gave me.  A love so strong that not even death cannot separate us from it.

You see, my mom knew I prayed for her healing before the cancer came.  And in her last days she looked me in the eyes and said, “Abby, God did heal my heart.  I would never have been able to survive the surgeries I had these last months if He hadn’t.”  Speaking, pleading with me amidst the grief of her dying to not lose faith in miracles. 

The miracle of physical healing like the Roman official received for his son.  To have a boldness empowered by the sheer magnificence of God to always, always believe he can do the impossible.  To not live in a self-protective way that will not dare to hope in what God can do in this life.

But, also, the miracle manifested in her own strength to give comfort TO ME even unto the end. 

Yesterday was the eleventh Mother’s Day I celebrated without my mother in this world. 

But it was also the eleventh that I celebrated with her in my heart like she never was before. 

It seems with each passing year I find greater strength in the way she lived, especially at the end.  My focus becomes more and more trained upon the love she gave that shines brighter and brighter beyond her death.

And every power of darkness that wants to rob me of my faith is defeated more completely. I draw closer and closer to the One who is the source of all miracles, all joy, all victory and the King of the Only Love worth the journey of our living and our dying.

for all of the mothers who have lost…