New Life

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 

I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.

Isaiah 43:18-20

When we bought our home about a year ago we were pleasantly surprised to find our yard blossom into a marvelous garden of sorts! We had no idea we had a bright pink bush and a bright yellow bush! AND a crab apple tree!! Colorado is tricky though, if the freezes continue through "spring" then these beautiful plants miss out on their "pretty" time and skip straight to green. This year, fortunately we had two weeks of warmth (heat almost) and so all of the plants had plenty of time to burst open! They are stunning!! These pink bushes as well as the white blossom trees make for a strikingly beautiful season. (I wish I knew what these bushes/trees were called but I don't, so sorry).

Reflecting on this last year of my life, I have thought "the first year of marriage wasn't hard, what was hard was the trials and sorrows in my own heart." What were they? They had to do with accepting the reality of my sever selfishness. They had to do with unspeakable heartbreak over teenagers and family brokenness. They had to do with the humility of feeling inadequate and completely beat down by ministry in this city. They had to do with feeling face down on the ground in shame and shock of my own sin and desire to live for me. This year, was hard. I have been emptied out not because of being married, not because of brokenness around me, but because of me. Because of my sin and my choice to choose me over God, every day.

In recent weeks I have come to find that my desperate need for Jesus is screaming in my face. I see it in kids all the time, I get aggrivated and I want to strangle them and say "Don't you SEE!? You choose depravity and pain over a great God who sees you and LOVES YOU!? What's wrong with you!!?!?" 

And yet. Who am I to speak? If I don't live in this how can I expect a confused, lost 15 yr old to know any better? Shame on me.

The Lord gave me Ezekiel 37 to talk about in Campaigners this week and the truths hit me hard.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Not only did this apply to my own "deadness" but it also applied to my fear of dead things staying dead. Meaning relationships. In this moment of reading this chapter to girls for the 3rd time the Lord spoke that to me: 

Then he said to me: “Hailey, these bones are the relationships in your life. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of abundance. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’” (paraphrase added)

And now I see. I look around and I have hope again. I look around and I say "fill me up, Lord." Praying that "I, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that I may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." Ephesians 3:17-19