Full-Circle with God's Grace

Face to face with the magnitude of His grace, my eyes scan the room. There’s James, Blow Pop in hand, eyes wide like a deer in the headlights, hands swiping his hair and face as if to say, “Is this for real?” Without a word, his expression speaks: “What have I gotten myself into?!?!” I love him so much. Absent all traces of fellow testosterone, he presses onward into the great unknown: a house full of squealing, giggling, non-stop chattering teenage girls for our church’s in-town weekend retreat. It’s only orientation. Thursday night. The college leader poses the icebreaker: “What is something awkward about yourself?” Answering is awkward in and of itself. Confessions spill forth. Friends cleverly answer for one another. Giggles. Laughter. How much longer will the Blow Pop last? How much longer will James last? Stories circulate. What does my expression say? Can they see the wonder? Can they see the overwhelming awe of a God who has answered the deepest desire of my heart? 

The epiphany stuns. It’s almost an out-of-body experience. Not really, but sort of, because it’s so real. So yesterday. I sat where they did, excited and anxious about a weekend event to come. Church camp. Disciple Now. Retreats. I went. I left stirred. I longed to be the godly, loving, pure young adult leader. Or the godly wife and mother who served. Smiled from the joy within. Gave selflessly. Loved unabashedly. Exuded integrity. Nothing like my insides. My sin. My shame. The hopelessness of my despair. I longed so deep. I remained so far. Yet Thursday, among our youth, I sit. There. Really there. God shows me. His power. His grace. His faithfulness. His work. His full-circle redemption. In the pastor’s office, listening, observing, remembering, I sit, the woman I always wanted to be. He’s done it. He redeemed. He transformed. A miracle. Truly. Much done. More than I could have imagined. Much to do. More, I’m sure, than I could ever imagine.

I didn’t think it could ever happen for me. Not with what I’d done. Not with the way I still struggled. Not being the hard nut I was to crack. But God. He did it. It worked because it was Him. It couldn’t be me. Me the mess I made of my life. He the beauty of what He produced from it.

Isaiah 43:19 comes to mind: “Behold, I will do a new thing, now it shall spring forth; shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” It’s what He’s done. It’s what He will do. For me. For you. He will do the impossible. That which we cannot ask or imagine. When all we see is trees hemming us in on all sides, He sees the path. His way to redemption. Deliverance. When all we see is desolate, He sees abundance. The lush oasis of His provision. When all we see is hopelessness, He is hope.

The weekend’s theme is ROOTED. Growing roots in hope. Deep roots in Christ. Stable roots secure in the midst life’s greatest storms. Unuprootable. Roots through which the power of the Holy Spirit produces fruit. Much fruit.

Circling our home leader, ten high school girls, a young mom, and this old girl sit sharing testimonies. Tempests meant for destruction reveal young trees clinging to their Savior. And God is doing a new thing.

What new thing do you need God to do in you today? What impossibility threatens despair only He can dispel? Are you in a Sahara or a dense forest, and only God can make a way? Behold! He will do a new thing! Check your roots. Are they buried in the soil of self-effort? Good works? Independence? Financial security? Popularity? Accomplishments? Possessions? Physical appearance or ability? Career? Tolerance? The word of the media or cultural gurus? Or are your roots extending deep in the rich soil of the word of God? Are you fertilizing with fellowship, basking in the sunshine of gratitude and praise, watered with the rain of His Holy Spirit, protected under the shadow of His wing, drinking in nourishment through prayer?

My prayer for each girl this weekend is my prayer for you. For me. In Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, that we remain ROOTED:

Radically available

Open hearted

Open minded

Totally honest

Eternally blessed

Divinely changed

“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving” (Col. 2:6-7).

 

I pray the God of hope will accomplish all He desires according to His good pleasure as we become wholly His today.

 

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

When a Mole Hill IS a Mountain

I am relieved to report I am surviving! I have more peace today than I did a week ago. Not all the time…yet. But more of the time, and you know what? I’ll take it! I am rejoicing…still. Even when I don’t feel like it…still. And I am in awe of God’s goodness and faithfulness. He heard my cries for help, and He answered, above and beyond the itty-bitty realm of possibility from which I asked. Honesty was risked and friendship restored. Humble love was risked and a child poured out their heart, even the struggles for which I was to blame. Lying bare at the foot of the cross, God covered me. Carried me. Caused me to seek after His plan. His purpose. His ways. And then He gave me more. More of Him. More of His truth. More for my children. The more I was troubled, the more ready I was for anything He had for me. I didn’t care what the truth was, or how hard it might be to receive, I just wanted truth. And He gave. And some of it hurt. It was about me. My shortcomings. My sins. My neglect. My selfishness. My desperate need for a Savior every day. My desperate need for grace every moment. My insecurities. It hurt good, though. The kind of hurt that brings an end to the bleeding. The kind of hurt that marks the beginning of God’s healing. God’s treatment. God’s rehab. God’s deliverance. By faith.

Faith. Jesus says, “I say to you if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain , ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you’” (Matt. 17:20). A mustard seed. That’s not very big. My mole hills become mountains, and I wonder what that sliver of faith looks like. Does the fact that I’m struggling mean I have forsaken faith altogether? God shows me the answer. No! Faith isn’t always some catastrophic, life-changing moment when we say yes to God to the accompaniment of angels singing the Hallelujah chorus. Hebrews 11:1 defines faith simply as “the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” It is the conviction we have that what we hope for in Christ is actually a reality today. It is the proof we and others need of the reality of what we cannot see. Faith is evidence of Jesus. It is evidence of salvation. It is evidence of hope. It is evidence of grace. Things that happen in a realm undetectable to the bodily eye are tested and proved by our faith. Sometimes it’s faith to do the big stuff God requires, like leave everything that’s comfortable and familiar, and follow after Him. But other times, like for me these last few weeks, it’s the faith to turn to God every three minutes because that’s as long as I can make it before my mind wanders to worry and He has to turn me back to Him.

Regardless of the measure of faith we have at any given moment, we simply must have faith. When we are saved by grace, it is through faith (Eph. 2:8). It is not of ourselves, but God is the one who deals each one of us the measure of faith we have (Rom. 12:3). He moves on our hearts to respond to Jesus with the faith He gives, and He saves us. Based on Hebrews 11, look at what He accomplishes by the faith He gives:

By faith, we gain understanding. By faith, we obey God from a right heart. By faith, the lives of those who have passed before us still speak to us today. By faith, God delivers. By faith, we are saved and can do the really hard things God requires. By faith, we become heirs of the righteousness that is according to faith. By faith, we can obey when we have no idea where it will lead. By faith, we can live temporarily, anchored only to Him. By faith, we can experience the impossible. By faith, we can consider Him faithful who has promised. By faith, we can seek a heavenly country. By faith, we pass the tests we face, even the extremely difficult ones. By faith, we can bless our children and speak of the future. By faith, we can defy evil rulers without fear. By faith, we can refuse position and heritage in order to be who and where God calls us. By faith, we endure. By faith, we see the unseen. By faith, we can do things that have never been done before. By faith, we can experience miracles and deliverance against all natural odds.

Everything is by faith in the unseen. Faith requires focusing on the heavenly. Faith makes the impossible insignificant. Void. Ineffective. Faith gives God all the glory. Faith preaches from our lives long after we’re gone. Faith strengthens others to faith.

The greatest faith truth for me this week? By faith, I can leave everything behind and find the ability to sacrifice even what is closest to my heart. The hard truth? Many times, the thing closest to my own heart is my own self. By faith, I can sacrifice self. That is what is on the alter right now. Me. My desires to control my children’s lives. My desire to have and be their answer. My desire to figure things out so I can fix things for them. My activities and accomplishments that supersede God’s priorities for my time and energy.

Hebrews 11 chronicles the big leagues of faith. The all-stars. Faith’s hall of fame.  Abel. Enoch. Noah.  Abraham. Sarah. Isaac. Jacob. Joseph. Moses. Rahab. Gideon. Barak. Samson. Jephthah. David. Samuel. The prophets. All big players. All simple men and women. Just like you and me in some way. Imperfect. Inconsistent. Interfering. Tempted. Stumbling. Manipulative. Sordid past. Yet, God gave them faith, and their faith is the evidence we need today for our faith.

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” (Heb. 11:6). Thank You, Lord, for the measure of faith You have given me. I ask You now, in Jesus’ name, please increase my faith.

And I ask You, Lord, please give every person reading this right now greater faith as we become more wholly Yours.

Shauna Wallace

Holy His

When the Shoe Drops

Two pink lines. There they were, plain as day. I must have done something wrong. Let me try that again. Wait, did they turn pink faster that time? Are they actually darker and more pronounced? How could that be? (Don’t answer that, because I really do know.)

Exactly one year ago today, this is the conversation I had with myself standing in my water closet wondering how in the world I was going to let my husband, James, down easy. You see, our oldest of four had just turned twenty-two and our youngest nine. James’ favorite daydream involved some form of us, all by ourselves, traveling and enjoying life while our grown children started families and gave us lots of adorable grandkids. All I could envision was me stabbing his empty nest balloon with a gigantic epidural needle! Trembling with fear, unbelief, and excitement, I held my tongue all day until he came home from work. Apparently, it had not been a good day, but there was no way in the world I could hold my mud for better timing. I invited him to our room, shut the door, asked if he wanted to sit down, and dropped the bomb: “I’m pregnant.” It was the first firework of the New Year! My husband took the news very well. We agreed that if God gave us life, we would embrace it, and then I proceeded to tell everyone we know. My children literally would not believe me, and the most common response from friends and family was, “Is this a joke?” I remember with a smile on my face. In January, we jetted off on our family vacation, and when we returned, I had my first doctor’s appointment. That’s when the shoe dropped.

“There’s no baby.”

The ultrasound screen showed a little sac, but it was empty. I must have looked like a deer in the headlights. My previous pregnancies had been free of complications. The thought had never even entered my mind that this one would be any different. James was waiting for me in the waiting room. All I had to do was pull it together enough to get from the exam room to his arms. And there I fell apart. Convulsing sobs made my speech unintelligible. Even though we weren’t planning to conceive, the moment we learned I was pregnant, that child became a part of our family. Now that child would never be?  I literally couldn’t believe it. We talked, and I looked on the internet and found hundreds of stories of women who had received the same diagnosis of a blighted ovum and later found out the diagnosis was wrong. Filled with hope, we put our faith in God and not in the doctor’s reports. Here are excerpts from an email I sent to friends and family for prayer:

While the doctor expects that I will have a miscarriage, I am waiting on the Lord’s report. God is good, and I am standing in faith that the work He has started in me He will be faithful to complete. I put my faith and trust in Him to show me exactly what’s going on, as He truly is the only one who can know. I found a web site where tons of women have posted their stories about being diagnosed with a blighted ovum and told to come back in a week or two for a D&C. When they did, they had one last ultrasound just to be sure, and there was a baby and a heartbeat. I don’t know what’s going on. The doctor’s can only say what they see with their machines. But the Lord knows, and until He tells me different, I will proceed with this healthy pregnancy. I have hope, because my hope is in the Lord. Several people have texted and emailed me words of encouragement with the same message: We walk by faith, not by sight. Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. God is so good, and I will praise His name forever no matter what happens.

This was the beginning of a journey that threatened and strengthened my faith. The doctors never found a baby. But I’m here to tell you, God gave me victory. In the midst of walking through one of the most difficult, heart breaking times I’ve ever experienced, God made Himself and His word alive to me. It’s one thing to hear His truth, but when He makes it real in us, we receive something no man and no doctor and no bad report or rotten circumstance, sickness, or disease can steal away. The irrevocable truths He instilled in me are forever mine, and in His omniscience, He knew I would need them throughout the year. Stick with me on this. I pray you find it worth your time to read a bit longer of a post today.

IRREVOKABLE TRUTH #1: “Your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (I Cor. 2:5). We are surrounded by the wisdom of men, referring to human wisdom. We’re full of it ourselves, aren’t we? But no matter what man says, no matter who a man is, the schooling he has, the authority he has, his expertise, position, or place in your life, he is still man, and we are not to put our faith in his wisdom.  No matter what scenario we contrive as the best for us, we are to place our faith in the power of God, not a particular outcome. As I placed my faith in seeing a baby appear on the screen, I wavered in unbelief when it didn’t happen. My faith was misplaced in my own wisdom. When the Lord gently and lovingly redirected my faith to His power, I found myself anchored solidly to Him. No matter what you’re facing, and I know many of you are facing much more devastating circumstances than mine, God’s word never changes. Place your faith in the power of God.

IRREVOKABLE TRUTH #2: Weak faith requires the faith of others to survive. We MUST join our faith together to survive the testing of our faith. I’d like to share the story as I tell it in my book, Holy His: Hope for a Life and a Nation Wholly His, in the chapter titled “Power-Packed Prayer ∼ on Coming Boldly to the Throne”:

I’ve also experienced times of testing when the prayers of others have given me the strength to keep going and made the difference between winning and losing a battle of faith. During the writing of this book, I found myself taking a stand of faith against the reports of doctors who told me I was pregnant, but there was no baby. My family chose to believe the report of the Lord over the reports of the doctors, and it was an unprecedented test of my faith to stand, and then having done all, to stand. Without the prayers of my friends and family, I would have failed. We must hold each other up when we can’t hold up on our own, just as Aaron and Hur do for Moses in Exodus 17:8-13 when Joshua and the Israelites are fighting the Amalekites:

Now Amalek came and fought with Israel in Rephidim. And Moses said to Joshua, “Choose us some men and go out, fight with Amalek. Tomorrow I will stand on the top of the hill with the rod of God in my hand.” So Joshua did as Moses said to him, and fought with Amalek. And Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. And so it was, when Moses held up his hand, that Israel prevailed; and when he let down his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands became heavy; so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it. And Aaron and Hur supported his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side; and his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. So Joshua defeated Amalek and his people with the edge of the sword.

Our battles may not be in fields against enemies with swords, but they are real, intense, and deadly nonetheless. Ephesians 6:12 tells us, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” As we’ve already seen, one of our mightiest weapons is “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints” (Eph. 6:18). This means seeking, asking, and entreating God for one another! When we do, we are holding each others’ arms up so we can win the battles of faith!

Anchor yourself firmly to the faithfulness of God today. My blighted ovum was the beginning of a year when the other shoe actually did drop. Several times. Maybe you’ve had a year like that. Maybe you, too, lost a baby, or someone close to you received a cancer diagnosis. Or your husband lost his job. Or someone you love died. Or you lost your home in a fire. Or your child is wayward or moving far away. Perhaps you’ve been devastated financially, or your marriage is falling apart. Maybe you face criminal charges and legal troubles. Whatever circumstance you face, I pray you will put your faith in the power of God and allow others to join their faith with yours until victory becomes your reality regardless of your circumstances.

Stay tuned Monday for the second blog in this series on discovering God’s faithfulness in the midst of disappointment: “Where’s my truck?”

May the Lord bless you today as you become wholly His,

Shauna Wallace
Holy His