Category: Songs

Thanksgiving Reflections 2023

Thanksgiving Reflections 2023

Carolyn

It’s been a little over a year now since we moved 734 miles away to a new home. It’s taken about that much time to get adjusted to a new home, community, church, job for my husband, and the gift of having my mom live with us. All of these are grace gifts from the Lord for which I give thanks, especially today.

We’ve traveled back to our former community for Thanksgiving to be with family that remains there. Longtime friends welcomed us to stay in their home for the week. I’m always stunned by others’ hospitality to us when we travel back, their willingness to open their beautiful homes to us so graciously and without any obligation. It’s like a retreat to stay there. More grace gifts.

I was thinking this morning about that surprising gift of someone sharing their home. What enables me to have access to such a lovely place, free of charge, without any debt owed, being able to partake of their generous gift and be so blessed? Relationship, friendship. If I didn’t know them, they likely wouldn’t open their home to me! But it’s out of that friendship that this gift is offered.

And how is it accepted? By saying yes, receiving it, realizing I don’t have a way to repay them for this abundant generosity with anything other than thanks and maybe a small gift which can’t begin to measure up to what I’ve been given! It seems almost feeble to leave a small gift and note of thanks.

The Bible is full of parables, stories, analogies, metaphors that give us a glimpse of a greater truth. This sharing of home is a picture to me of a greater truth. Jesus has a home prepared in heaven for us that is beyond comprehension and beyond what I could afford. It’s a home which I could never earn and never repay Him for bringing me into. In that home, the true King Jesus reigns and rules, and we will be set free from all that we struggle with on earth. He invites us to come.

How do I gain access to this heavenly home? Through relationship, friendship. By knowing Christ and receiving His invitation of saving grace. The ultimate grace gift.

John 15:12-17 is a beautiful passage about friendship with God. Jesus says in verse 14 that those who do what He commands are His friends. I want to be His friend; do you? Verses 12-13 tell us what his command is: “Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Verse 17 emphasizes it again: “This is my command: Love each other.“

How do we know how to love? We follow Jesus’ own example of love. He laid down His life for us. Why? So that we could know Him, have relationship with Him, and be saved from our sin by faith in Him. In that love and relationship, He will one day welcome us into His perfect and eternal home. I want to be with Him where He is, in an eternal home; do you?

It’s interesting today that in our society, oftentimes, Christians are depicted as hateful. But true Christians will be known by their love. That’s the hallmark of Christianity. A loving God who rescues us, who laid down His very life in love. And He calls us with the two great commandments to love Him and love others. Love.

If people fail to show love, Christ is not to blame. We are. We are sinners in need of His grace gift of salvation.

I myself have failed in this measure of love this past week. When I travel and leave my routine, I find myself often stressed and easily irritated, putting this stress on to those around me. Isn’t that lovely to admit during this beautiful holiday season? I have failed to love as Christ has loved me.

But as I awoke this morning, tempted to wallow in the shame and frustration at my own sin and self and shortcomings, eyes on me, I instead was drawn to worship. Don’t wallow; worship. Don’t look down and around; look up. Don’t remain in the sin; repent and turn again to Christ. For His love for us is so great, He gave His life, a sufficient sacrifice, for sinners like me.

This Thanksgiving, I rejoice in that salvation, in Jesus Christ who saves and loves, who will one day welcome me into His home, not because of what I’ve done, but because of who He is and what He has done. I want to receive this free gift of grace through faith and enjoy all the benefits of knowing Christ as my Savior. I want to turn again for forgiveness in the daily wear and tear of life, not wallowing there, but looking up to worship. On this Thanksgiving, I want to thank the One who is worthy of all my worship.

I pray you have a joyous Thanksgiving, too, giving thanks for gifts such as these today with people you love, in the presence of the King of love.

The Threads of Our Lives

Carolyn

Last night, I finished reading Beth Moore’s new beautiful memoir All My Knotted-Up Life. Having completed so many Beth Moore Bible studies through the years, beginning in 2005, and having known her for so long, many stories were familiar, but it gave a fuller look into her life. I have appreciated so much her passionate desire to know Christ, to know His Word, to be committed to the local church, to disciple women, and to express in such memorable and beautiful ways His truth. She is more creative than I think most know, with a great sense of humor, and a gifted communicator and giver of words that bring life and hope. Beth has a way of making the Bible come alive and sharing its profound truth in ways easy to understand and remember. Seeing her passion caused me to want to read and know my Bible and the Lord better. I can remember so many events in my life paralleling with her studies. At times, she has been misunderstood and misrepresented, but she has faithfully continued to walk with the Lord. I am grateful for her ministry and thankful for her influence in my life.

As I think about her book’s title, All My Knotted Up Life, and these knots of our lives that seem confusing and difficult, yet can become so redemptive, I am reminded of my favorite childhood author, Corrie Ten Boom. She had a book called Tramp for the Lord which mesmerized me, as a 9 or 10-year old girl, with the stories of God’s miracles. Corrie’s family lived in the Netherlands which was invaded in 1940 in World War 2. Her family provided a safe haven in their home for persecuted Jews. They were captured and ended up in a concentration camp where Corrie’s father and sister died. Through a clerical error, Corrie was released and went around the world telling people about Jesus and all He had done.

Corrie writes: “Although the threads of my life have often seemed knotted, I know, by faith, that on the other side of the embroidery there is a crown. As I have walked the world—a tramp for the Lord—I have learned a few lessons in God’s great classroom.” These lessons she shares in her book.

Corrie also shared a poem called “The Weaving.” I’m not sure if she wrote it or simply popularized it, but it reads:

My life is but a weaving
Between my God and me.
I cannot choose the colors
He weaveth steadily.

Oft’ times He weaveth sorrow;
And I in foolish pride
Forget He sees the upper
And I the underside.

Not ’til the loom is silent
And the shuttles cease to fly
Will God unroll the canvas
And reveal the reason why.

The dark threads are as needful
In the weaver’s skillful hand
As the threads of gold and silver
In the pattern He has planned

He knows, He loves, He cares;
Nothing this truth can dim.
He gives the very best to those
Who leave the choice to Him.

I have thought of this poem often through my life. When things look knotted and messed up from our view, we will at some point be able to flip it over to see a beautiful masterpiece that God was weaving.

In August 2014, I was able to visit Corrie’s home in Haarlem, Netherlands. These two photos of a weaving hang in her family’s home there, along with one other reminding us that Jesus is Victorious!

One other meaningful thing to me is that in my office where I worked for 12 years, which was decorated before I arrived in it, over the desk hangs this same poem, which has been a regular reminder to me:

In Beth Moore’s book, she takes the meanings of these knots in our lives further and gives a greater view to God’s personal care for us through it. I encourage you to read it.

As I searched to find the meaning of “Jesus is Overwinnaar” in Dutch (“Jesus is Victorious!”), I came across this song by Selah which I’ll close with. I praise Him again today for the beautiful weaving He is making out of your life and mine.

Don’t Forget to Thank Him

Don’t Forget to Thank Him

Carolyn

Do you ever pray for something, and then when everything works out, move back into life without pausing to remember the prayer request or how God specifically answered it? I have a phrase that runs through my mind often, “Don’t forget to thank Him.”

This blog started as a way to give praise to God for the great things He has done. I’m reminded today of one of God’s provisions, a “stone of remembrance” (Joshua 4) that I had not yet collected here, where I want to praise and thank Him. Read more →