Compliments, heart leaks and cactus blossoms!

The other day I read the following phrase on someone’s facebook page and it made me stop and think that “YES,” someone has captured my thoughts! 

“It’s easy to make your wife jealous, but try making other women jealous of your wife.”

Throughout the years, my husband and I have attended many social events where a man would share how wonderful his wife is. I would sit there and think how romantic that was, how much that must mean to her, and how much he admires her to validates her. Then I stopped and wondered if she even hears this because he always praises her?

On the way home I would say to my husband, “Wow, did you hear so and so talk about how wonderful his wife is?” After so many parties it would irritate me as these men would do it every time! My husband would nod and not really grasp what I was really wanting him to grab and act upon. I thought, ”Please Dear Lord, gently poke him with a cactus spine to really hear me and desire to duplicate those comments about me in any form that he feels is grand, and I will give him clean sheets and a back rub forever!”  

It’s not that my husband is not loving, or kind, as he is. He texts me sweet things all day! But his nature is to not brag, even his sport success. I mean really anything! It also is not his love language to lift me up in a public setting. It is how he was created.  I just want to change this little thing!  Can’t he carry a compliment filled pitcher he could pour over me? After all its one of my love languages! So is this his issue or mine? 

Since we are peeling away my heart issues I have to ask myself. “Do I over compensate and talk too much about this and that to camouflage my pain? Is my compliment bucket so low I fill it up myself? Probably so! My how unGodly! If I could fix that leak in my bucket would I feel more safe and secure? Of course! So how can I do this and what will satisfy?

I really would like to think I have done a lot of great heart checks but since there is still a leak, my solution would be to go see the heart Doctor.  Who better than the one who created love or the one who gave his life because he loves me so much?

Cactus Blossom

So I say Doctor Jesus, what woman does not want to get a full and overflowing heart?To feel adored and loved and spoken kindly of?  So I am coming to you to get refreshed and refilled! So he said, “Lay your hand on your heart and ask the Holy Spirit to refill your heart.” Um sure?? Then he said, “The Father poured out his heart on your behalf. No one has ever loved you as your Father loves you.  He will have the best beat to match your designer heart that he created.” So tucked inside my heart if I stop and listen I hear God's promises. “Have you seen my daughter Rebekah? “She is highly loved and she will soar. She will do those things I admire and planted into her to do as she is filled with joy and laughter. Watch this heart repair blossom her!  Today, days after writing this God showed me this matching verse! “The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the rose and the autumn crocus. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing.” Isaiah 35:1

Do you know where those perfect words are for you?  Come with a thankful heart and let God in and he will tell you. “Trust in him and pour out your heart to him for he is your refuge.” PS. 63:8 

P.S. The jealous thing got answered. God is jealous and desires for me to be with Him..that should be enough to cause me not to care about fleshly jealously!

Broken Handle

Have you ever held pieces of a broken treasure in your hand and stared at it wondering immediately if it could be repaired? Recently I recalled a picture of a broken handle. I saw myself trying to glue the piece back in. It fit perfectly back into place, but I knew when I added the glue it would be spaced differently. I saw the lines of the cracks that would never disappear and grieved the piece was altered. It had been transformed into something familiar but changed, but never again like the original. I  glued the pot and remember turning it to conceal the cracks. But, with every glance I knew they were still hidden on the back side, camouflaged. 

I asked God about the pot I saw and he showed me it was my hollow human heart. Very bruised, broken and torn unlike the vibrant one he had created for me. I had broken it in places and it had taken a beating and abuse from myself, others and events.

Nichelle's sketch

The handle that had fallen off was a picture of old wounds that held me captive but served no purpose.  Like a heart that needed oxygen to beat it was disconnected.  God wanted the dead piece out of my heart now! As always he was waiting for me to allow him to do damage control. Could I let go? If I was to glue or mend that piece, it would be so ugly. It would be like an unwanted stronghold, an added component in my life. 

The straight edges on my heart were clean cuts that represented a break that was out of my control. Events that surprise us, can shock us and are very painful. There is nothing we can change or alter after the fact. Sometimes as quickly as it happens we quickly conceal it and think we do not have to deal with it.

Other breaks are jagged from a longer period of time, where I allowed my heart to keep the pain. The hurt ripped over and over and further down like a piece of fabric. I kept the now awful pain as if it were a needed friend, I depended on.

Other pieces in my heart were fragmented pieces. I wanted to throw out each pieces if it were an offense, once a vital part of my heartbeat but it revealed an obstruction. Now it could never serve a good purpose. This felt like situations where I had loved, and through a relationship or soul tie that was formed, it needed to be discarded. Someone had taken my piece and I theirs. It needed to be returned or tossed out.  Some of us are not good at throwing UN-useable pieces away and keeping the painful memory as junk in a closet.

Years ago, I accidentally broke someone’s special clay figurine. I was surprised as I wet the clay.  It naturally re-formed. Clay is very forgiving, and the material which is said the human body was formed from.  Sometimes we are like that figurine and we need to be broken and remolded to be seen by our creator in his light and forgiving like clay.  We can look perfect on the outside but underneath there are fault lines hidden from others but seen by God.

How is your repair going? Are you allowing the Spirit to help?

People whom you love and trust the most can often leave the most shattered, crushed pieces in your heart like foreign objects.  We attempt to make that relationship or situation like it was before it was broken but it can never be the same!  We may still want the familiar, even though the familiar is not a right fit. It served its purpose as it touched our lives, but something changed and we wonder what can ever replace that void. That’s when we need the master potter who can mold, reshape and fill us. Jesus and the Spirit have the substance to nourish our wounds, to piece us back together into something so awesome and unique! As in times past where treasures were hidden in ugly clay pots God has molded a treasure into our lives. 

I am allowing God to reshape my fault lines and the Spirit of the living God to mend my heart. There is still much to do! From this cleaned pot, I wish to pour good and joyful healing substance from my pot to yours, as God touches me!

God’s Jewels “Yet we who have this spiritual treasure are like common clay pots, in order to show that the supreme power belongs to God, not to us. We are often troubled, but not crushed; sometimes in doubt, but never in despair; there are many enemies, but we are never without a friend; and though badly hurt at times, we are not destroyed. At all times we carry in our mortal bodies the death of Jesus, so that his life also may be seen in our bodies.” 2 Corinthian 4:7-10 GNLT

Life's choices, Bondage or freedom?

Freedom to Choose

On this 4th of July day I am thankful for so many freedoms that have been given to us by our God. Thou at times we whine and complain and do little to add to the fabric of change we are responsible for our own life murals. 

There have been times in life that my independent liberties have set me into more bondage than freedom. Can anyone relate to that? You think that a certain path gives you a freedom with no ties attached. In my naivety of being a teenager I had such a path that in future writings I will explore. But for now I look back and see those perceived freedoms were out of order and breaking the guidelines that were set before me as a child of God. To think I would not pay a price for those things is foolish. I have payed the price and now I feel those errors have been corrected and I have been disciplined by my Heavenly Father just as my earthy father would love and correct me. Through correction I have gained much wisdom and experiences as anyone would.

This country is walking dangerously close to thinking that anything goes and there are no consequences. Thou I will not get political in this blog, I will say that God has given us guideline to follow and we have a choice.  Below is God’s jewel for this Independence day.

God’s Jewels “Make the Lord proud of you by being good citizens. Respect the authorities, whatever their level; they are God’s emissaries for keeping order. It is God’s will that by doing good, you might cure the ignorance of the fools who think you’re a danger to society. Exercise your freedom by serving God, not by breaking the rules. Treat everyone you meet with dignity. Love your spiritual family. Revere God. Respect the government.” 1 Peter 2:13-17 The Message 

How is your heart feeling today?

Rebekah's HeArt Collage

How is your heart looking? Is it stuck feeling the muck? Or tied up unable to respond due to feelings of constant rejection or trust issues? Is the pain of so little oxygen like your having a attack? Maybe it's hiding from various love options feeling undeserving, wounded or even apologetic when there is no need? Or possibly its being scrubbed clean to be able to walk free of the past. Mine has been camouflaged for years from all of the above!  As I unravel the many reasons of what effects my heart,  I am awakened into the warmth of a new journey with a true beat full of passions and new hope. No matter where you are, come follow along on this journey. I have to believe with my healing heart, and know this story has a amazing ending!

God’s Jewels “I’ll pour pure water over you and scrub you clean. I’ll give you a new heart, put a new spirit in you. I’ll remove the stone heart from your body and replace it with a heart that’s God-willed, not self-willed. I’ll put my Spirit in you and make it possible for you to do what I tell you and live by my commands. You’ll once again live in the land I gave your ancestors. You’ll be my people! I’ll be your God!"                                      Ezekiel 36:25-26 msg