Quoting Andrew Peterson....

...one of my favorite things to do. :-)

Seems pretty appropriate, since several of us seem to be focused right now on the whole plowing and planting and weeding and harvesting process going on in our lives.

This is a great song all the way through, but...there's one line (you won't have any problem recognizing it!) that just speaks volumes to me and always has.

The bottom line is...weedy or not, in full-bloom or scraggly, bearing an abundant harvest or just a few dried-up pieces of fruit--His grace is STILL SUFFICIENT for me. His love covers a multitude of...well, weeds. And wormy fruit. Don't get me wrong...I want to lay abundance at His feet to honor what He's done to my heart, but it's still ME that he loves. Period.


JUST AS I AM--Andrew Peterson

What's that on the ground?
It's what's left of my heart
Somebody named Jesus
Broke it to pieces
And planted the shards

And they're coming up green
They're coming in bloom
I can hardly believe
This is all coming true

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
He showed me the day that He shed His own blood
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does

All of my life
I've held on to this fear
Its thistles and vines
Ensnare and entwine
What flowers appeared

It's the fear that I'll fall
One too many times
It's the fear that His love
Is no better than mine
(but He says that)
Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
He showed me the day that He shed His own blood
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does

It's time now to harvest
What little that grew
This man they call Jesus
Who planted the seeds
Has come for the fruit

And the best that I've got
Isn't nearly enough
He's glad for the crop
But it's me that He loves

Just as I am and just as I was
Just as I will be He loves me, He does
The same as the day that He shed His own blood
He loves me, oh, He loves me, He does

The tilling and the redeeming

So...God is obviously up to something in my life. Not really sure what it is right now. Not really sure if I even WANT to know, from the little "previews of coming attractions" I've experienced so far. There's a deep sense of...almost foreboding, but if it's GOD, can it really be that bad (in the long run, anyway)?

I KNOW that God is in the junk recycling business...He's the ultimate finder of long-forgotten attic treasures--and amazingly adept at cleaning, polishing and fixing that which is dirty and tarnished and broken. He should be, shouldn't he, since he's also the designer and creator of what we've allowed this world to trash and toss aside like yesterday's news? He alone intimately knows the purpose for which our broken-piece-of-crap selves were created.

And, like my friend Hersch, I've been sensing that God wants to till the soil of my heart and dig out some of those deep-rooted weeds that are choking out a beautiful and bountiful harvest...I'm not unwilling to yield a bountiful harvest, of course, but I've wielded the tiller in the garden in my backyard enough to know that plowing the soil is never a pretty thing, although there's not much more beautiful to a farmgirl-at-heart than a freshly plowed field, just waiting to be planted. And, isn't it amazing what lies just beyond the hard, dried surface of a fallow, weedy field?

I'm not really sure where all this is going...maybe I just need to sort out some thoughts and see in black and white what I'm sensing the Lord is telling me to prepare for. If I'm worth tilling and worth cleaning and polishing and fixing, God must see beauty and potential in me...and that's worth knowing. :-)

What Erin said...

I'm lifting some words from my friend Erin's blog until I get derusted. Amazing how God leads you to the right places at the right time for the words you need to hear. (Thanks Erin and Hersch...and the "total stranger" whose words Erin posted on HER blog.)

"I'm excited to see what God has for tomorrow...how he redeems the brokenness all around me into something far more beautiful than what I ever thought to ask Him for..." (words from the total stranger)

This idea of redeeming what is broken...has been coming up all around me recently. A song I heard in the car today:

"So lay down the sword
And put away the doctrine
Love a little more, love a little more
‘Cause everybody’s broken..."

And something Bev said to me awhile ago...She had just finished pointing out a character issue I have...and, knowing that I'm a mel-head, she qualified her observation with another piece of wisdom that I've held in my pocket ever since: "Don't go to the opposite extreme, now...God doesn't want to change your tendency, He wants to redeem it..."

I guess this is kind of like God's business--it's what he's all about: buying back our broken, garage-sale junk (this who-would-ever-want-this-piece-of-crap-broken-toaster-but-I'm-going-to-put-a-price-on-it-and-see-what-happens junk)...and somehow, miraculously, magically, wonderfully, turning it into something beautiful. That's the business God is in. I don't get it, but it makes me so glad, because I'm one of those broken things that he's bought and is in the process of turning into something worthwhile.

Thanks, Jesus.