Rachelle is a homeschool graduate and college girl who studies Communications as a college junior at a small Christian university. She coaches gymnastics at her local YMCA, is a graduate of She Speaks and can often be found with her nose in a good book, her pen in her favorite notebook, or blogging at www.rachellerea.com.
May I please rewind to a time when I didn’t know the word “betrayed”?
Betrayed is such a bad-tasting word. Those letters leaves an acrid taste in my mouth, like smoke after a fire. The flames may be gone, yes, but the awful ashes remain.
I wish betrayed meant what the little girl at the front of the church last Sunday thought it meant. When the leader telling the children a story asked if anyone knew the meaning of betrayed, the pigtailed pixie mentioned carrying food on a tray. Be-trayed.
If only that were truly the meaning, but I know better. After all, I’ve been on both sides of that word: the one left with the ashes, and the one throwing wood into the fire.
Perhaps it was the Easter story I reread no long ago that brought the word into the forefront of my mind. What went through Peter’s mind just after the rooster crowed, just before he wept? What expression did Jesus wear during that split-second after Peter’s betrayal when He looked at this disciple He loved so much He was willing to die for him (Luke 22:61)?
What kind of heart forgives a forsaking like that?
What kind of heart indeed?
Only one.
Only One.
So I come to the Savior. And the Heart-that-Loves-Anyway whispers forgiveness. For the moments in which I have betrayed Him by turning away like Peter did. For saying with my lips or with my life, No, I don’t know Him.
He forgives the betrayal and I can live in the light of His love again. In the radiance of real redemption, which is so much sweeter a word.
How have you experienced the redemption of Christ in your life?
Proverbs 4:23 NASB
Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.
I plopped onto the couch, Kindle in one hand and a mini peanut butter cup in the other (the mini’s are my favorite—more chocolate!). It was the kind of quiet Saturday afternoon that you’re always seeing in movies, but never seem to have too many of yourself.
I started to read and unwrap my candy at the same time. Then I laughed. My peanut butter cup had some extra wrapping. This one is double-wrapped. It’s special. The truth settled into my soul like the approach of a summer storm. This one is double-wrapped. Just like me.
Purity is not a bracelet, to be clasped upon a wrist when one is feeling pretty.
Purity is not a cloak, to be taken on and off depending on the temperature and season.
Purity is not even an attitude, that ephemeral, illusive something that needs constant adjustment, that flutters in and out of our hearts like a butterfly hesitant to land.
Purity is a pair of eyes, probing the heart to not only oust the unsavory…but to embrace the beautiful, the bright, the blessings.
Purity is a pair of ears, tuned in to not only turn away from the tarnished…but to listen to the lovely, the lyrical, the liberty.
Purity is a pair of hands, turned up to the Father to not only release the rugged…but to catch the celestial, the celebration, the comfort.
Purity can be a hard thing to accept at times, when we cry out to be satisfied now. But isn’t it amazing to think of our Lord lovingly wrapping us in His arms, unwilling to release us to just anyone or anything?
God, thank You for wrapping me up in Your love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Psalm 51:10 NASB
Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
What does purity look like to you?
Today, I could unleash some really elaborate scheme to try to make you believe something wildly untrue, misleading, and perhaps even disappointing.
I could give you some great piece of news that might have your eyes bugging out and your mind blown away. Or I could spin a tall tale of something so incredibly sad that you’d be relieved when you found out it was false.
I could do that. And then I’d spring out at you like a Jack-in-the-Box with a giant “April Fools!” You might be mad. You might laugh. You might shake your head at my silliness.
For a moment, I wonder if Mary felt at the tomb how I feel all day long on April first: wary, unsure, hesitant to trust anyone or anything for fear it could be a scheme.
Photo: James Emery
Mary had walked to the tomb with a passal of her friends–‘cause we women travel in herds, don’t ya know (Luke 24:1-3).
I wonder if they wept when they saw. The rolled bedclothes looked especially forlorn, I’m sure. The air whistled through the hollow cave, emphasizing its emptiness. The body of her Lord, her Savior, her Friend, was gone for good.
Or so she thought.
Then she heard from a pair of men “in clothes that gleamed like lightning” the most amazing news that surely made her want to laugh and weep all at the same time (oh, we women are so good at multitasking, are we not?).
“…Why do you seek the living One among the dead? He is not here, but He has risen! Remember how he spoke to you…” Luke 24: 5-6 (NASB)
From her place kneeling on the ground, head down, I wonder what Mary thought as she heard the incredible Easter news.
I think my thoughts would have been along the lines of You have got to be kidding me. Are you people blind? That tomb is empty! Empty with a capital E! And now you’re trying to tell me Jesus is alive!? Excuse me. I saw Him die. And I have a hard time believing anyone could survive that. Thank goodness I wasn’t there, eh?
But that last little line the two men said? “Remember how He spoke to you…” That brought to Mary and the other women’s minds what Jesus had indeed told them: He would be crucified… and on the third day He would rise again.
“And they remembered his words.” Luke 24:8 (NASB) I love that sentence because in it we find all kinds of faith and hope and peace.
All they did was remember Jesus didn’t lie, Jesus said He would come back, Jesus said the end of the story would only be the beginning… and then they rushed to tell the others (Luke 24:9).
The truth is I don’t care for the first of April very much because there is so much potential for things to go wrong. Jokes can backfire. Pranks can hurt. Call me cynical or too serious, but it comes down to being hurt one too many times.
But as I walk April Fools Day–and all the days this world finds me in– with a wary eye, there is Someone I can always trust.
Because on that Easter day, as He had done a thousand times before and has done a thousand times since, He proved that He was trustworthy, that He keeps His promises, that His Word is true. I can, no, I will rely on Him with all the faith of a child because I know my Savior tells the truth…and He lives.
And that is no April Fools.
It was a Wednesday night, and the rain fell like the world was in the middle of a Noah’s Ark reenactment.
Streaks of water crossed my windshield like zebra stripes. Those were the only colors I could see. Black and white. A night as dark as pitch, a single white line on the edge of the road, and my white lights shining into the void. I’d never driven through a storm this bad, and as the rain poured harder and harder, I couldn’t help but worry.
Photo: Emily Carlin
I had cranked up the radio in an attempt to hear the song over the pelting of raindrops on my truck’s roof. Taylor Swift was doing her best, but what filled my ears was the sound of rain–like rocks hitting a tin roof. I sang the words mostly by heart. Of course, that same heart was beating fast, like it was trying to sing its own cover.
It was the same dark highway I always take home on Wednesday nights when I have my only night class, but this was different. This night, I was scared. Shaking-hands-on-the-steering-wheel scared. Sing-along-as-best-I-can-to-quiet-fear’s-lies scared.
Oh, Jesus, where are You? I need You. Like now.
Sometimes the dark highways we always travel become such a part of our routine that we don’t think anything of them. We get used to the winding turns or the straight-forward telescope tube lanes. We could almost drive them backwards, we know them so well. A classmate that’s not so nice? We can deal with that for one semester. A coworker that always complains? At least we don’t spend all day with him or her. A friend who forgets to call? That’s okay, we have so-and-so to fill in.
Those dark roads become so familiar we forget that they’re even dark.
That is, until it rains.
Then it’s the end of the world. The walls cave in, our hope blows out, we’re left to grope for our way, and we can’t help but think, I was doing so well. What happened? I was holding up. I was surviving. So why now? Why’d everything have to get so much worse?
That’s when we crank up the radio to distract ourselves. We grip the wheel with determined hands. If we can just get through this night, eventually, eventually we’ll get home to our safe little house, our safe narrow driveway, our safe predictably frustrating keyhole in the front door. We’ll slam that same door shut and say we made it.
But what about the in-between?
Is there something I’m missing here, God? Some lesson to be learned in the dark and stormy night?
Could the fear, the sudden unraveling of the familiar fabric of my scheduled routine, the night when the rain isn’t beautiful… could that be the only way God can get hold of me? The only way He can remind me that, yes, I need Him, and that He is waiting there for me the whole time.
You light up the sky to show me You are with me… ~ The Afters
Dark road. Slanting angry rain whose only intent and purpose seemed to be blind me. But you know, that dark road didn’t last forever. Oh, it felt like it. It really did. I moved on from Taylor Swift’s song to a slow love ballad to an upbeat chart-topper (which so didn’t describe my mood).
Then the highway crossed my little town and, lo and behold, there was a traffic light. Shining red in all its commanding classiness. I’d never been more grateful to hit the brake pedal.
God, is this what You wanted me to do the whole time? Stop? Even if only in my soul?
The change in speed as I turned off the highway and cruised down Main Street helped me see a bit more clearly. I no longer gritted my teeth, and my windshield wipers actually began to do their job.
Town Square greeted me, the trees tall and glittering and glorious.
Someone had switched on the Christmas lights in September.
Yes, dark highways go on for miles and miles. Yes, sometimes it’s hard to travel them, especially when the rain is anything but beautiful.
But keep going, even if it’s only at ten miles per hour. A red light and strings of the Christmas season’s promise may be waiting just ahead. Immanuel. He is with us.
What about you? What are some lessons you have learned on the dark and stormy nights?