Lydia Rae

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

When God gives you a promise, you oftentimes sit and day dream about what that promise fulfilled will be like, look like, feel like. You envision living in the promise and try your best in your human mind to conjure up what God’s plans will look like played out.

When we found out we were going to have a baby, Cale and I constantly talked about what we thought she would look like and what her personality might be like. We day dreamed often about what that new season of having an actual baby 24/7 would be like. Our human minds tried so hard to wrap themselves around God’s plans, and we thought we were prepared. But the biggest thing Lydia has taught me now that she is here is that God’s plans and promises fulfilled are so much more incredible and perfect than anything we could ever try to picture or come up with on our own. Any ideas we might have about what God’s promises will be like once we are walking in them are nothing more than a shade of the vibrant and beautiful reality of what it is really like once you’re there.

When we were naming Lydia, we prayed about it and wanted to see if God would give us any insight into some of the things he had “marked” her with– characteristic traits, things she is called to, or ways God wants to use her life specifically as she grows older. We wanted her name to mark her identity; to speak the truth about who she is every time someone says it. Overtime the consistent things we both felt were that she would be a worshipper and someone who was a ray of uplifting light to those around her; that she would fill people up and not drain them. So we chose Lydia in reference to the woman in the Bible named Lydia who was described as a “worshipper of God”, and we chose Rae to symbolize a bright ray of sunshine. We spent time thinking about how those traits would play out and when we would start seeing them come into play.

But none of the dreaming even came close to the little person that we are discovering her to be. She is so intimately designed to be exactly what gives Cale and I life and makes our family so much more complete. She relaxes and falls asleep to worship music, not her lullaby songs. She will sit quietly and listen to Cale practice worship songs on the piano or his guitar. And she has been so much more life-giving to us than life-draining. She brings the joy of the Lord to my heart and refreshes my spirit every single morning when I go to pick her up and she is smiling at me. She smiles WAY more than she fusses, and is just a radiant beam of light. Always. She’s barely 2 months old, and already I see everything we thought the Lord was speaking over her flowing out of her little life.

It’s incredible how detailed God is with us. How he orchestrates our lives and leaves no small thing out. Even the things we don’t notice don’t go unnoticed to Jesus. He cares about all of it. I am learning this more and more as we watch this little baby grow into the person God designed for her to be, and designed for us to be as a unit.

The past two months with her have been so joyful and sweet, to say the least. I want time to stand still so we can soak in these short precious months of her infancy and just watch that face full of innocence and purity discover her new world with wonder and awe. She’s nothing short of a blessing.

Birth. It’s Not Just For Babies.

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

It’s crazy really that i haven’t written at all during this insane turn of events in my life. You know, pregnancy and becoming a mom for the rest of my life and whatnot.

If I am honest with myself, I think I have just been in survival mode, trying to keep my head on straight and my mind from going crazy as yet another huge change has swept through my life. The past two years have been nothing short of chaos. I’ve written a bit about that in previous blogs. So it was almost humorous when we found out a baby was on the way.

It has been really hard for me to see God’s heart for me these past couple of years. I’ve felt lost, confused, alone, abandoned, and overloaded with ceaseless piles of responsibility and identity that I don’t know how to walk in. Adding “mom” to the pile was almost like another blow in a lot of ways. I’ve wanted kids, always. It isn’t something I hated the thought of. Just not now. Now seemed like the worst time to throw that factor into my life. It seemed to uproot all the things that were finally kind of setting into place. And not things that I had put into place and wanted; things that Cale and I felt like God was telling us to step into and live in. So we stepped in obedience into these places directed by the Lord, and not even a year later we are already having to step back from a lot of those things. And it just makes no sense.

I’ve struggled with understanding. I want so badly to understand my life in its current state. I want to understand God’s heart in it all so I don’t have a wrong perspective of His character in this. I want to understand why we moved to Phoenix. Why what God called us to do seems like the last thing we are capable of doing currently. Why I don’t have passion anymore for the things that used to make my heart beat wildly and keep me up at night dreaming about. Why seeing God seems like the last thing I am able to do in a time when it’s the thing I need the very most. Why God would see me fit to raise and lead a child into this world that I am struggling so badly right now to understand and see with right perspective.

WHY.

Understanding.

I want to understand.

“As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.” Ecclesiastes 11:5

And then God connects small pieces that don’t answer my “Why” questions at all, but that somehow give me peace in that there is always so much more going on underneath the circumstances we find ourselves in than we know.

My life is a mystery to me right now. Just like this baby that is about to come out of my body is a mystery. I cannot understand for the life of me how a human life just grew from NOTHING to fully flesh and blood in my body. And when she comes and I see her for the first time and see the perfection of her skin and fingernails and fuzzy head and wonder-filled eyes, I will be looking at a life only ever previously touched by God himself until she came out of my womb; I will be looking at a miracle. And in pondering this, the Lord quickened something to my spirit. This season isn’t just about having a baby. It’s about seeing something bigger than going through a painful labor and losing nights of sleep for months and changing dirty diapers. It’s about seeing all of this as a parallel to what God is doing IN me, in my spirit. In the same way that the frustrations of pregnancy and labor die off as soon as that baby is put in your arms for the first time, there will be a moment where God gives you the miracle He has been forming and molding through the complexities of your circumstances, and the instant you behold it, all the frustrations from lacking understanding or answers to questions will die off. The wonder of God in all His majesty will just take over and you will be captivated. It will all be worth it. Questions probably won’t have answers, and understanding may never come. But that is the beauty of the miracle. To see something come from seemingly nothing is quite a thing to behold.

It takes time for great things to be molded and fashioned within you. Longer than 9 months usually, when it comes to your heart and your spirit. And greatness is a miracle. We are nothing more than dust from the earth. We have nothing great to offer God. He doesn’t need us weaklings; He isn’t dependent upon us. But He chooses to mold in us His very character and greatness, so that the world would see glimpses of Him through us. That might very well be the greatest miracle we will ever experience; being made into the likeness of God.

So I am letting the frustrations turn into hope. It’s a slow process. But to hold onto the promise that God makes LIFE from what looks like nothing is my anchor. He is making a miracle in my life, both physically in sweet Lydia, but also in my heart and spirit. He is at work. I can’t see it or make sense of it, but someday it will birth and I will behold it for the first time and be blown away. This is the character of God– Miracle Maker; Life Giver.

Finding Security in Life.

~ alihake ~ 4 Comments

I have been in a maddening season for the past two years. Life has seemed to excel at exponential speed, and as wonderful as the events are in life that have been happening, I have been growing more and more frustrated with the fact that I haven’t gotten time to feel fully transitioned into anything. I got married last September, and learning to be a wife, though I believe that will be a never-ending process, wasn’t quite something I was able to devote all my attention to. Because within months of us getting hitched God called us to start a ministry at the church we are now presently at. Which meant leaving and transitioning communities, places of worship, cities, and houses; all unfamiliar territory to me. It also meant stepping into a role I have never quite experienced before in building and leading a ministry from the ground up. We got 4 months to be able to figure all that out when, lo and behold, we found out that we were expecting a child. Which means figuring out how to juggle being a wife, a leader, a mom, and just myself. Having time to really breathe in any of these areas would’ve been nice, but it seems that the Lord thought otherwise.

And honestly, I have really been frustrated with it. I have felt like a failure in all areas, insecure in all areas, and have had something of an identity crisis on top of it all. Seeing God and trying to figure out what the heck he is doing has been nothing short of futile in all attempts, and it feels as though I have lost connection with him. I feel in over my head, alone, and angry at what seems like God throwing me into the deep end of real life and watching as I try frantically to stay above water and figure out why He has chosen to do things this way.

I’ve been frantically trying to find security in where life seems to be going. I have been wanting to make sure that I do it all excellently, and have been disappointed that I seem to be ill-equipped for any of the areas I’ve had to step into. I don’t feel secure in my abilities, or in my understanding of what God is doing. But this is where I caught the one piece of wisdom I feel I have learned so far in this journey to who-knows-where.

I cannot find my security in what God is doing. I can only find security in who God is.                       –Graham Cooke

Isaiah 55:8 says,

 “My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.”

Human reasoning and seeking to figure out the ways of God will pretty consistently leave me feeling frustrated and let down. I don’t want to know for any other reason than because I want some kind of control. To have understanding isn’t a bad thing. To desire it isn’t a bad thing. But when you have a hard time trusting God if you don’t get that understanding, that is when there is a bigger issue at hand.

God’s character is the only place that I can stake my security. His heart towards me and his promises towards me are the only things I need to be able to move forward. Reasoning my way through my circumstances hasn’t gotten me very far. I still feel stretched and overwhelmed and confused. But what I hold onto is this: God gave his son for me, so that I could have LIFE in abundance, and so I could have intimate relationship with Him here and now. He loves me more than I could ever understand, and He has brought Cale and I to this place in life right now with deep intention. He knew every day of my life and its events before a single one came to pass. He is doing a deep work in me; creating deep wells of truth with Him. He is preparing me for the plans that He has for me. And if it takes 15 more years before I am released fully into that place where everything comes together and makes sense, then so be it. I just need to know that God is my good Father who has given great attention to the details of my life. He only gives the best to those he calls his own; the ones who diligently seek him and wait on him. He is worthy of everything I have to give him, regardless of whether or not I ever gain understanding in these matters. He is worthy.

You can’t find your security in anything other than simply who God is.

“In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33

A People Set Apart for His Own Possession

~ alihake ~ 1 Comment

We have been in a season of life where Christians are needing to figure out where they are rooted and what they are going to choose to ground themselves on when it comes to their beliefs. The church is being shaken, and there are people who are wanting to land in the center of Christ no matter how unpopular that place is, and there are people who are hungry to stay relevant to the people around them and to keep everyone happy; ending up with compromise or twisting the words of God to make everyone happy and to feel good.

I have been deeply burdened by the division I have been seeing among the church, and I have been crying out for insight from Jesus. I don’t want to follow what feels good, and I don’t want to just accept the things that seem like they could be Jesus. I want my life to reflect Jesus; all of Him. I want to promote Jesus and His way in everything I do the best I can as a broken vessel.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you. Titus 2:11-15

God’s grace is a sweet, sweet thing. His heart is so good and the way that so many of us have found His Love is why we claim Jesus like we do. But His grace is not for the sake of making people feel happy. His grace presents opportunity to all; opportunity we would never have without His grace and goodness. It presents opportunity to live freely in Christ AND reveals to us the right way to live. It does not give license. His grace is not a tool to mask the sins we feel like accepting and living in. It is not a phrase to use to defend our selfish choices or other people’s choices. It is instead a tool to teach us how to live in godliness and how to step out of those dark places. His goal in saving us through grace was to set aside a purified people for His own possession. Which means there is a process of washing and removal. He loves us and accepts us AND calls us higher. It’s all of the above, not just the ones you want to accept.

There is a real reason why the Bible says the road is narrow to the gates of the Kingdom. There is a way to live that will be different from the world. Being “progressive” or “relevant” is not the calling of the Christian. Being steadfast and faithful and SET APART is the calling of the Christian. 

When we contort the Word of God, we commit blaspheme, and we lead people astray. And the waywardness of the people we lead astray is our responsibility. This is a season to stand up to relevance and fitting in and to say, “I am standing with Jesus.” Not standing with sin simply to make people feel loved. Jesus never stood with people in sin for the sake of making them feel better. He always showed incredible love in someone’s sin and challenge. He encountered people with great love and told them to turn from their sin. He loved deeply and challenged deeply. How do we expect lost people to encounter a holy God and discover a transformative life if we are just telling them their sin is ok? We love them in their sin and show them a better way through Jesus.

The verse above doesn’t just end there. It goes on.

Be submissive to rulers and authorities, be obedient, and be ready for every good work. Speak evil of no one, avoid quarreling and be gentle, and show perfect courtesy to all people. For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to our various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, He saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out so richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

The calling as Christians that we have does not give us right or reason to judge people who have not experienced the goodness and kindness of Jesus through salvation. We are to relate to those who don’t know Jesus in remembering when we were lost and led astray; this means with COMPASSION not COMPROMISE. Just as Jesus showed incredible love and incredible challenge, so are we to follow the example. We see people where they are at, we show them love in the middle of where they are at, but it doesn’t end there. Our love isn’t our own. It’s the love of Jesus. And those who are lost need to know the love of God. They need to know and taste the experience of sweet salvation in Jesus. That opportunity is for all, and we are the ones who carry the ability to give all that opportunity. But we don’t leave people there. God’s grace through salvation teaches us how to live in godliness, and part of walking in the way of the Lord is walking OUT of our flesh and INTO the realm of the Holy Spirit. We are to be examples of holiness to a world that finds it absurd to have freedom in purity. It is a contradicting idea to the world, but God in his grace gives us the supernatural ability to do it for the sake of being an example to the world and to new believers as a people set apart.

We need to exhort one another to stay in perfect love AND obedience, not being led astray by new teachings or ideas, but adhering to the commands of the Lord and lining our lives up with the narrow road. The road unpopulated by the popular, but the one that gives us Light to shed on a dark world. Our compassion flows from this place; a passion for people in understanding their lostness, but also in understanding the freedom they could have in Jesus to come out of their sin and into the supernatural freedom of walking in holiness.

I want people to know the great love of God. And I want them to know it is possible to live a life of FULLNESS in purity and holiness. I want them to know they don’t have to be bound by their sin anymore. Jesus died for THAT freedom. I want to see chains broken and lives redeemed. I want the fullness of Jesus to sweep over people. That is revival. Transformation in thinking, in choices, in behavior. I want to see people discover their identity in Christ, an identity so much greater than anything they could make or plan for themselves. I want the discovery of their worth and value in the kingdom to cause people to “set aside every weight that slows them down” from running toward more of Jesus and His purposes for them.

The church is the only entity that holds the power to see a culture and society change. We are the vessels God chose to put His authority into to redeem and love and set free. We need to come together as a set apart people, understanding the power vested in us by Jesus, and move forward with revival mentality. If we are not united, we can’t do what we were made to do. Consecrate yourself to Jesus; let him set you apart. Let him give you compassion and endurance to walk that narrow road toward the kingdom and see what happens as you attract the darkness around you. You are an attractive light when you are lit up! And when we as a church are lit up, we are an immovable force that even the gates of hell cannot stop.

On Being A Leader

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

I read in a book once that being a leader is to be in a place where you constantly feel like you’re in over your head.

I didn’t really resonate with that until recently.

Being a leader doesn’t have to mean leading a movement or a large group of people. It can wear a lot of different hats; parenthood, sibling-hood, spouse-hood, friendship-hood, and all the other “hoods” that can make you feel responsible or burdened for someone else. And at this point in my life, I feel like a lot of those hats were thrown on me all at once. And I feel awkward, uncoordinated, unconfident, and most of all unqualified.

Feeling in over my head is just about the best way to describe my life right now. I don’t know how to be a great wife, I don’t know how to be a great “parent” to our beyond needy dog, and I have no clue as to how to be a great leader for our young adult group. It is a weight in all areas I haven’t felt before, and trying to figure out where priorities lie in what needs my attention first has been a cause of stress and a place where it’s been easy to neglect myself. When things go awry in one area, I beat myself up for not giving enough attention or leadership to that area. And when it happens in another, I get mad that I couldn’t give more attention to that place. It feels like a lose-lose battle most of the time.

But here are some things I have been discovering again for the hundredth time, or learning for the first time.

First of all, my need to be perfect in all areas of leadership is where my self-hatred festers. I expect greatness from myself at all times, and when a weakness or a blindspot is uncovered in moments of  imperfection, I take it personally and deeply, and the unhealthy cycle of self-loathing begins. The “should’ve, would’ve, could’ve” speech begins, and I unravel myself down to nothing in a matter of minutes. And for the millionth time, but what seemed like the first time, the Lord reminded me of His promise over this issue:

“My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.”  2Corinthians 12:9

My ability to lead perfectly isn’t what changes people or draws them to the Lord and into His promises for them. His grace in my weakness is what does! That is why Paul responds to this promise by saying, “I am glad to boast about my weaknesses so the power of Christ can work through me!” The enemy has been wanting me to respond in exactly the opposite way to my shortcomings because he knew that once I discovered the power that comes from releasing my imperfections to God, I would be that much more effective in the kingdom of God. Releasing my human nature to God and allowing Him to mold me and use me in those places is where I change, and where the people around me change.

Secondly, I become a greater leader as I allow myself to go through the pressure and often the suffering that comes with my circumstances. I re-read a status I posted on Facebook this morning that said, “God does not give us overcoming life, He gives us life as we overcome.” (Oswald Chambers) God never promised us deliverance from trouble, but rather deliverance in trouble. 2Corinthians 4:8 says,

We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair.

The pressures and troubles of life are the only places in which we can truly see God’s power working in our lives and not our own. If I felt confident and successful in every area I was leading in, wouldn’t I always take the credit for myself? It’s human nature to do that! But God allows the pressure because He wants us to see His mightiness and our frailty, and He rightfully wants the glory for the gifts we are able to operate in on this earth.

Lastly, believing you have been given authority to lead in the areas you are in is key to finding confidence in Christ to step out and walk in that calling. If you are a mom and you feel like you are helpless and unable to do what you need to do to raise your child well, you’ve already been given authority to do it. No matter how many times you think you fail, your authority doesn’t come from your successes, it comes from God, and He works everything–your best AND worst– together for the good and glory of his name! If you are a spouse and you feel like you can’t do anything well for your other half, you’ve already been given authority to walk well in that place. What you feel are your failures aren’t really failures. They are weaknesses God is wanting to work through to show your spouse HIS power and goodness as you move in vulnerability and humility before that person. If you are a leader of a group of some sort and you feel like you have no control over that group, it’s because you don’t. God does! Authority doesn’t equal control. It equals having a power or a right to make decisions for a group. But you can’t control people! Even God doesn’t control people. Authority is invested to people who will choose to set those “underneath” them up for success, or in this case, to encounter Jesus. But you can’t make someone encounter anything. Your best efforts might not mean anything to some people. But God is working in and through you as you move in meekness and humility before your group to allow His authority to be seen as you believe you have and walk in the authority you have been given.

God’s ways aren’t our ways. His thoughts aren’t our thoughts. His idea of success in your life most likely is not your idea of success. It always looks different. But it is also ALWAYS the best for your life. So rejoice when things don’t seem to be going the way they should! God is using that place of weakness as an opportunity to glorify Himself in your life if you let Him.

The Silent Season

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

I have been in a long, slow, cold season with God. I feel nothing. Not His presence, not his power, not love, not value, not fullness. I feel abandoned. I feel alone.

It feels like God has left me.

When I was 19, my life was changed in a moment by God. I was sitting in a friend’s room, confessing the life I had been choosing for the past year and a half. She began praying for me and I felt this heavy weight of indescribable love fall over me. I could tangibly feel the presence of Jesus, and it was more than I could handle. I was sobbing from the acceptance and love I felt, despite being in the middle of ugly sin. I felt valued and cherished and for the first time in my life, I was able to see myself the way God saw me; full of potential.

That is how my relationship with Jesus began.

It’s easy in those intimate places with God to fully abandon yourself, to fully surrender and tell God that no matter what happens He will always be Lord. He will always come first. He will always be the first I think of in the morning, and the last before I sleep.

But no one warns you about the silent season. You can’t prepare for it, and you can’t do anything to avoid it. As a follower of Jesus, the season is part of the glory being produced in us. But that’s just a nice, neatly packaged sentence to read when you’re in the middle of this season. It doesn’t help you get through it, it gives no advice. It’s just encouragement for the future.

The first year of this season I grew bitter. Towards God, towards the people around me. I grew depressed. I became fearful of things that never phased me before. I walked through life in a state of numbness; checked out and waited for God to “come back” and be near again. I moved from this state to self-condemnation. I hated myself for being the cause of the season. I wasn’t enough for God, I screwed up too much, God didn’t see my heart as favorable, I was rejected and forgotten because I was too prideful….if I could think of a reason, then I blamed it on myself. Because I didn’t understand why else God would be allowing me to go through this. I reasoned it had to be because I did something very wrong and God was punishing me.

Because here’s the thing–when God remains silent, the lies begin to sound louder and more rational than anything else. If you aren’t holding fast to truth, the lies WILL take over.

The past few months though, I have found a new place to land in the middle of this darkness. I have landed on truth, and I have been able to hold my head a little higher and see Jesus a little more clearly and rightly.

God, in His mercy, drew me back to Himself when I was 19 through loving intimacy. I had been running around searching for boys to love me, and quickly made my bed in a dark hole of shame. God knew the only way to get me out of that was to give me what I was looking for–true intimacy; the intimacy I was created for. HIS intimacy. Those first few years with God were like nothing I have ever tasted or seen. When I called, He answered. When I prayed, He was there. When I sat at His feet in worship, His presence with thick and real and fulfilling. I could feel us moving in relationship and it ruined me for life in the best way.

But God has been showing me that this season is taking me to new levels of faith in Him. He doesn’t want me to just love Him because of what He does for me. He wants me to love Him simply for Him. So when the emotional gratification I get from God is removed, and I am left with emotionless times with God where I don’t FEEL what I used to feel, is He still worth it? Am I still devoted to Him? Is He still first in my life? Do I believe and know nothing had changed about Him or our relationship except the fact that I am not experiencing a spiritual high?

I can honestly say this has been the hardest battle with my flesh I have fought so far. The need for emotional gratification is real and it’s deep. We are made to experience God with our senses of feeling and emotion. It’s GOOD. But that’s the most shallow form of relationship. It’s easy to give myself to something I am receiving satisfaction from. There is no sacrifice in that. But when the satisfaction is taken away and I am left to make choices for God based off of what I know to be purely just true and right, am I making choices for God? Am I a sacrificial lover? I can say no to that right now. And God knew that. Which is why He is allowing this season of silence. I desire to be someone that will give my life to Jesus, no matter what the cost. And this season has uncovered a piece of me that has got to go.

Learning how to die to self is the hardest part of life. But on the other side, when the death has taken place, the JOY of finding the life that was intended for you makes it so worth it!

So this silent season. I hate it. I don’t enjoy it. But I do know this now. God is here. He is next to me. He is guiding me. He is speaking loudly all around me in His creation. He isn’t disappointed in me. He loves me. And He is making me into who I asked Him to make me into–a sacrificial lover. I don’t know how long this season will last. But I am learning to choose Jesus no matter what I feel, and that is where the enemy cannot touch me.

The Church Undone

~ alihake ~ Leave a comment

I have felt extremely heavy and perplexed all weekend. Ever since the law passed for same-sex marriage to be legal in all 50 states, I have felt heavy.

And it hasn’t been due to the fact that I disagree with that practice becoming a normalization in our society.

This post isn’t about my thoughts and opinions on the decision made this weekend by our government, although I do naturally have them like everyone else.

I have felt this weight of sadness that I believe is from the Lord. This weight isn’t for what the world is doing and choosing. It is for His church and what IT is choosing. I found myself reading hundreds of posts from believers everywhere this weekend all over the internet; fighting, arguing, debating, disagreeing, being hurtful, and being hateful to one another. I found myself getting caught up in it all and at one point discussing it as well with people who disagreed with me. But it all felt wrong. It didn’t feel right. Not because a couple people disagreed with me. But because I could feel us as a church growing in division and disunity. (The conversation I personally had was a healthy conversation, but I did see many to the contrary.)

I have been praying a lot this weekend asking God to search me and to give me wisdom and understanding for what is happening. I have been asking for peace and a place in His wisdom to rest in all of this chaos and discord. I wanted a right perspective from the one true God. I wanted to know what the Real Jesus was doing and feeling and thinking. I didn’t want the influence of others or even other believers. I wanted God’s perspective.

I almost immediately got a Bible verse from Him.

We are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.  –Ephesians 6:12

My heart quickened to this truth for the church. There is potential for more disunity in the church than ever before right now. The very thing the church is called to be we are quickly running from. We are building walls and divisions, and those walls aren’t just against the LGBT community. They are against our brothers and sisters. There is an agenda that supersedes all other agendas right now in our world. It is an unseen agenda with unseen powers and authorities, and it is moving forward quickly against the church. The agenda to break down the Church and turn it against itself is on the move and it’s happening.

We need to stop looking at our brothers and sisters and seeing a battle to be fought there, and instead begin asking Jesus for eyes to see what is really going on and how we can unify ourselves to come against the Ruler of the World, speaking the truth in love and encouraging one another. Not just that, but being humble enough to receive godly correction, and to sit at the feet of Jesus and ask Him for His thoughts and His heart, setting aside our opinions no matter how right we think we are. The New Testament repeatedly talks about how we aren’t called to get in “foolish arguments that only start fights” (1 Tim 6:20, 2 Tim 2:14; 23-26, Titus 3:9, ). Dissension leads to losing the very thing we are all arguing about–our effectiveness and influence as The Church.

The Body cannot function if each member thinks it is better than another. And it certainly isn’t effective when it forgets that its Head is Christ. We are all moved and empowered by Jesus Christ. We are called to work in Unity. And we need to figure out what that looks like in this new place the world has brought about.

God, would the fear of the Lord fall on us; would we know You in all Your glory and holiness and majesty alongside Your great love; that the gravity of the King we serve would cause us all to fall on our faces in repentance because of Your great splendor. We desperately need to be awestruck again by Your brilliance, Lord God. You aren’t one to be mocked, You aren’t one to be taken lightly, You aren’t powerless, You don’t bring fear or cause division in Your Body, and You have a deep passion in Your perfect heart to see Your kingdom come and Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us Your heart, Lord. Teach us how to carry Your heart in UNITY, that we wouldn’t quench your spirit with our fleshly quarrels. Let us work together in love and truth to see Your name glorified and Your kingdom victorious.

Summer and Girls.

~ alihake ~ 3 Comments

I’m writing about modesty.

Those who have issues with this topic and don’t hold the same values in Jesus and Christianity as I do can dismiss, since I’m not necessarily writing to that audience, though I wish those of you in this category would open your minds a tad to how your choices always affect more people than just yourselves.

But those who have issues with this topic and DO hold the same values in Jesus as I do SHOULD read this. I feel a strong need to challenge and call up higher the women in our generation desiring to be more like Jesus.

I also want to say that I haven’t always held this strong conviction. I once had a strong feministic view on reality, figuring that my decisions for myself were for me, and that people who disliked my decisions should get over it because my life shouldn’t affect them. The clothes I wore shouldn’t affect them either and BESIDES, being a curvy woman with a big booty made it hard as it was to wear things that didn’t bring attention to that area of my body.

But over the past few years God has been changing my heart. And this is the thing that I had to come to grips in order to look more like Jesus and HAVE more of Jesus:

MY LIFE IS NOT ABOUT ME. 

“Everything is permissible”–but not everything is beneficial. “Everything is permissible”–but not everything is constructive. Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others. 1 CORINTHIANS 10:23-24

I have the ability and often the right to do whatever I want. I am able in and of myself to wear whatever I want, and that is permissible. But we are not called to live a life of doing whatever we want and getting away with whatever we want! We aren’t called to look out for ourselves but to look out for OTHERS.

Ladies, if you are following Jesus, or better yet claiming to be a follower of Christ, we live in a world that desperately needs to see what that looks like. We need to recognize that we are not living for ourselves; we are living to see God’s kingdom come. We are in a world that desperately needs to see a posture of respect for others and selflessness that exudes in how we dress.

The argument isn’t and CAN’T BE, “Guys need to learn how to guard their eyes.” or, “I shouldn’t have to worry about what others think about me.” This is selfish and the only interest in any of these statements is self-focused and self-centered.

We aren’t living for ourselves. We are called to build those around us up. We are called to “be an example to all believers in what we say, in the way we live, in our love, our faith, and our purity.” (1Tim 4:12)

Your belly shirts and butt cheek shorts aren’t setting an example. They are causing your brothers in Christ to stumble, and they are setting a bad example to the world of who Jesus is. Your tiny bikini tops and cheeky bikini bottoms are absolutely what the rest of the world finds normal and ok, but we are called to “not copy the behaviors of this world” (Romans 12:2). And if you struggle to see validity in this, I challenge you to go to a brother in Jesus you look up to and ask him what he thinks about swimsuit season and its affects on his mind. I give you permission to talk to my husband about it who has been fighting for purity in his thoughts for 10 years with a group of several other guys.

The goal of your life as a child of God is to learn how to “lose your life for Christ’s sake.” (Matt 16:25). It isn’t to get away with as much as you can and still be a Christian. The WRONG mentality in what you wear is wondering how low or how short you can go without getting talked to by your pastor or discipler. The RIGHT mentality is wanting and desiring to stay as far away from anything that causes your brothers to stumble as possible in what you wear.

I want freedom for my husband. I want freedom for his friends and freedom for the other men in the church that are painstakingly desiring to choose Jesus despite how hard us women are making it for them. I want US to passionately want it for THEM. Because the thing is, we want to marry pure men, but we have a hard time coming alongside them and helping them by admitting that we have a direct affect on their freedom. We want the very thing we are quenching with our selfish choices.

Let’s choose to be women that help men fight for their freedom. Let’s decide that our generation of men ISN’T stuck forever in cycles of impure thoughts by helping them and encouraging them with more than just words, but with OUR lives and the way we choose Jesus FOR them.

This is not a judgment or hateful post. Again, it hasn’t been until the past few years that the Lord began to open my eyes (and EARS) to the guys around me and to my own choices. But we are called to spur each other on and raise each other up. Your life isn’t meant for yourself; it’s meant to be a display of Jesus and his heart for the people around you.

Let’s be women who rise to the challenge of selflessness.

The Husband I Didn’t Deserve

~ alihake ~ 2 Comments

This morning my husband made pancakes and coffee.

I could end my post right there and probably get a lot of people to “ooo” and “ahhh”. But I will continue.

As we ate and drained our coffee mugs to wake up Cale started sharing, like he often does, all the stuff he felt like God was opening his eyes to. He was talking about the young adult group we started and the next steps he felt like God was challenging us to take. We spent a good portion of our breakfast together dreaming about the promise God is wanting to bring us and the people around us into.

And I felt so incredibly lucky. I don’t say that from a place of arrogance or even from a place of having grown up dreaming about having a God-fearing man who would lead me spiritually and now I have him. I say that because I didn’t grow up dreaming of someone like him, and I never even aspired to trying to find someone that was even close to the “standard” he upholds.

I grew up as a boy-crazy little girl, and turned into a boy-crazy teenager. I never had brothers and never knew what a relationship with a boy as just a friend or a “brother” even meant. Boys were so foreign and curious to me, and so my standard in looking for a boy to get close to was just that–looking for a boy. Any boy. Any boy that would pay attention to me and prove to me that I was interesting back; that I was just as intriguing to them too.

So naturally this curiosity developed into an unhealthy obsession in high school, and I learned how to say the right things and do the right things to get that attention I wanted paid to me. My challenge for myself wasn’t to try to get the nicest boy to pay attention to me. It was to get the most attractive boy to pay attention to me. So I lived a hidden life through high school of a few shallow, short relationships and a lot of hook ups. The concept of depth was foreign to me.

I found a lot of brokenness in this place. I grew up knowing God and believing in God, and I knew that all this stuff was against God, but at the time God was a set of  “do’s and don’ts.” His way seemed so lifeless because I didn’t understand that He WAS life. I just saw Him as rule-maker, not as a God who actually held real power to actually cultivate life in my heart that I had never experienced. C.S. Lewis explains this season of my life best.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

I had never been to the sea, if we use the analogy C.S. Lewis uses. I didn’t know the awe-filled wonder and captivation that came with experiencing the sea. All I really knew were mud pies. I had lived my life experimenting with mud, digging deep holes in mud, building slopping “castles” out of mud. And I thought that was as good as it got. And to a degree, I was easily pleased here.

But God changed my life one day in November, 2009. He encountered me in His grace, completely unexpected. He sought me out. He claimed me as His, even though I had still been walking in the same mud I had always walked in. And once I heard His voice, I was changed. It was immediate. I saw myself with new eyes. I saw my worth, my identity. I saw what God thought about me and it broke me. And it was then that He began to give me new eyes to see the guys around me with.

I met guys that became my first example of brothers I ever had. I experienced what a holy, innocent, safe friendship looked like with a male and it was so healing for my heart.; to know that I could be captivating to someone not for my body or my impressive words, but simply for the heart and the story that God had given to me. I walked through a season that lasted 4 years of the Lord teaching me how to be innocent again. There was temptation in this season and lots of failure. But God refused to allow me to believe that I was meant to go back to the mud pies. He was taking me to the sea. And the road trip was confusing and it made me have to believe in faith that the sea was going to be worth it.

And then Cale came into the picture as more than a friend. And he was the sea. At first I was terrified to go near the sea. Because it was so wonderful and deep. I expected disappointment like I experienced in the mud. But with time and grace, I put my feet in. And the water washed my feet. It brought joy into my spirit. And as I inched deeper into the water, I realized that I never wanted to leave the sea. I was  continually surprised with the refreshment Cale kept bringing daily into my life. Like ceaseless waves washing over me, he never stopped building me up and strengthening me in my identity. I didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t even something I knew I needed until I was there.

Jesus knew me. He knew that my whole life I was searching to be captivating to someone. He knew that my heart was wanting to come alive, not just to another person, but to myself. I needed a reason to believe in myself. And it wasn’t Cale that brought this to me but Jesus. Jesus worked through Cale in my heart in a way that made me come alive to my identity in Jesus like I never thought that I could.

And now I sit across the table from a man that I did nothing in my life to deserve. I have a life with someone that is better than a trip to the sea. I didn’t spend time trying to get to the sea ever. But Jesus saw my gold. He saw what I would become once He introduced me to the thing I never knew. He brought out my potential by bringing me Cale.

And this morning was a moment of remembering this all over again.

Anxiety

~ alihake ~ 1 Comment

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I went to see my oncologist today for a check-up. Which means all morning leading up to my appointment I was riddled with anxiety.

4 years ago I was diagnosed with a cancer called Hodgkins Lymphoma. I was 20 years old and I had a sore throat. I had asked my mom for some kind of sore throat spray and she did the typical “mom thing” and made me go to the doctor, which I thought was a total waste of my time. But when the doctor felt my throat where my thyroid was and I heard him tell me he felt a “lump” I suddenly became anxious. He sent me to get an ultra sound and biopsy and, long story short, they found cancer. After surgery and 6 months of chemotherapy and radiation I was considered to be in remission and was able to stop doing treatments.

It’s been 4 years and the cancer hasn’t come back. Praise God! But when it did come in 2011, it brought a friend named Anxiety. It was small in the beginning, hardly noticeable with all the other attention being paid to the Cancer and celebrating being rid of it, and then focusing on moving on into “normal” life after treatments. But in the past year and a half it’s reared its head and has become a core stronghold over this area of my life– my health.

Every time I get a sore throat, every time I get sick, and every time I feel “off”, regardless of if it’s due to dehydration or just being over-exhausted, I’m immediately paralyzed with fear consuming my mind, unable to think clearly or to see God clearly. I just panic. Because I’ve lost my innocence to the reality of sickness and disease. And I can’t be assured that simple things are simple things anymore. Anxiety keeps telling me, “You thought it was no big deal before, and remember what happened? What makes you think it’s not back again?” You see, anxiety and fear feed off of the “what-ifs”. They feed off of possibility. The only substance they have to work with is the past: your experiences. So we find ourselves trapped in this box of “what-ifs”, unable to get out of our heads where the enemy has trapped us with Anxiety.

So how do you get out? Where is the freedom in all of this? How do you find peace in a place that once was home to real tragedy?

I was mulling over these questions in the car today as I sat in the parking lot, an hour early to my appointment, and trying to find some sort of solace.  And I felt the Lord remind me of a few things.

The first was this: You cannot find peace or security in your circumstances.

Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world.   –John 16:33

Our peace as people who live in Christ cannot be found anywhere but in Christ Jesus. Our security cannot come in an assurance that “everything will be ok”. Jesus says here in John that things will NOT be okay. He prefaces the whole point of what He is trying to say by, very bluntly I would point out, saying that we WILL go through things. Tragedy will happen. Sorrow will come. This is the reality of living in a sin-filled world. We have to recognize this as a reality and not deny it. But here is why Jesus is so beautiful: HE HAS OVERCOME THE WORLD. Which means He has triumphed over all things that are not a part of His kingdom. He has overcome fear, anxiety, disease, and death. Our thinking goes wrong when we read this and conclude that it must mean Jesus has taken it all away and we won’t experience it on earth. That is not what He is saying! Because people die. People die from disease. People who love Jesus die from diseases all the time. What He is saying is that our suffering on earth is temporary! Take heart! No matter what happens here, Jesus has made a way for you to be with Him in PERFECTION for eternity! He ultimately wins in your life, because regardless of what the enemy can try to do to your body he cannot touch your soul.

The second was this: Our spirits are constantly able to be renewed and restored, regardless of our outward circumstance.

Though our bodies are outwardly wasting away, inwardly our spirits are being renewed everyday.   –2 Corinthians 4:16

When Jesus tells us to “take heart” and promises us “life to the fullest” in John 10, He isn’t talking about our outward circumstances, but rather a fullness in our spirit that thrives whether or not our circumstances are full of incredible experiences or tragedy. Jesus died to bring us into His presence, into relationship with Him where we can access His heart and His love at anytime. Fear and anxiety come when we start expecting our circumstances to reflect God instead of our own spirits and hearts reflecting God. Nothing can steal, kill, or destroy that place in your heart with God that Jesus has established. He has overcome all principalities of darkness that would come against that place! You, not your body, are FREE to enter into full life with Jesus. Our bodies are temporary. They are wasting away with time and will continue to waste away.

And lastly is this: God knows every single part of your life from beginning to end.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.   –Psalm 139:15-16

Nothing that happens to me is ever unexpected or unforeseen. If God promises to work all things for my good, and something I don’t consider good happens to me, PRAISE GOD! He can see the good coming when I can’t. He already knows my victory story, even if my circumstances don’t look victorious.

Am I walking in all of these promises? No. Just today proved to be a day full of anxiety and unrest. But is God gracious enough to speak His wisdom and peace into my turmoil? Absolutely. And He did.

So I share this with you from the pit of anxiety. Let’s work our ways out of the pit and into the life Jesus paid for us to have!