Lifegiving

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Have you ever wanted to run? And just keep running, as far and as fast as you were able? You had no idea what you were running to, but you knew what you were running from…

Me, too.

I won her book in a give away on a friend’s blog site. I was so ecstatic that I had won. The book came in the mail and I immediately ripped off the wrapping and started to read. Good stuff.

Mm hmm……I’m liking this…. and then…….

I stopped.

Ouch.

She was treading a little too close to home for me. I set the book down…and didn’t pick it back up for at least 3 weeks. I stared at it on my bedside table. I saw my bookmark sticking out of the top, showing me exactly where I had left off. I didn’t dare touch it.

Not yet.

Recently, I was angry. Does anybody else do anything around here besides me? Doesn’t anyone else see this?  Why am I the one that is supposed to have all the answers? I don’t know. At that point I didn’t even care. Unforgiving. It was a hard and barren place to be pitching my tent.

Frustration.

Lord, I can’t take care of one more living thing. I don’t want too. When do I get to do what I want to do? Not enough time. Not enough money. Not enough energy. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. I was threatening to boil over with the resentment that I was carrying around with me.

That book was still there. No way. I wasn’t reading that book. Not by that Christian author. Her story, in many ways, was similar to my own. I was afraid to read on…to see how she had allowed God to handle the hard parts of her life. We all face the hard parts, don’t we? The hard parts are different for each of us. What might seem such a small thing to one, might be devastating to another. I won’t go into detail, because quite frankly my frustrations aren’t what is important. The point is, we all are broken and living a life that on some days we just can’t handle. Can I get an “Amen?”

Does anyone else ever have this issue? Do certain books touch you so deeply that you feel God put them in your hands, ON PURPOSE?

God knows that words are important to me, and I’m amazed how He puts just exactly what I need to see, in my path.

” That night I sat, broken, at my small kitchen table. I cried out to God for a lifegiving touch. I pleaded with my Savior to heed my case. He brought me to Isaiah 58. Here was an intense dialogue between seemingly righteous people and the living, holy God. These so-called lovers of God had been fasting and praying, yet they saw no supernatural move on God’s part. In this convicting passage, God blasts their false humility and goes on to say the following:

‘Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen…to loose… to untie…to set the oppressed free…. to break….Is it not to share…to provide…’  Isaiah 58:6-7

I knew God was speaking directly to me. “But, Lord”, I said.  “What if I can’t do it? What if I will never be happy again, what if I fall apart, or worse yet, break apart? What if I fail?”    —Tammy Maltby from her book Lifegiving  p.75

She goes on to explain her perspective change, how God spoke to her through His word. She understood that He was asking her to release her life to Him. To say  “yes” to His walk.

Reading this caused me to ponder, how many times, as Christians, do we go through “the motions” (sometimes grudgingly) only to realize that we are in desperate need of a new heart? Sigh. God is a masterful heart surgeon. He cuts away that which is not needed….that which is dead and not usable. After the hands of the Great Physician have touched a heart, it can be made new. And vital. And strong once again.

His touch can be life giving.

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