The Forever Exchange

Who is Darkness and who is Light?

One never knows what nature may teach if we are simply open to being taught. Lightning spoke boldly this afternoon. The sky lit up in brilliant color which gave heed to lights powers. The dark clouds illuminated with clashes of light. The closer the storm brewed, the intensity of the lightning grew.

Yes, I was sitting on the dock watching a storm roll over the marsh land. Beauty at every angle, but my eyes glued to the sky. It begin with the occasional flash of lightning, but as the storm rolled on the lightning was more interrogating. It swiftly made it's presence known. Amidst the screaming thunder and pretentious clouds, my attention remained on the light.

Dear Darkness,
Yes, I'll be honest, you have something mysterious about you. You allow us to be less than honest and keep vulnerability at a minimum. You teach us to hold tightly to control and push away teachability. You speak at us and accuse us, but you're never for us. You give us the ability to be shallow, and never allow people to see us bleed or stumble. You are a pride booster. You give us a false feeling of success. You make us believe the worst about ourselves. You keep us detached from hope, joy and peace because vision is blurred. But darkness, remember, when the power of light penetrates your existence you are hidden, you are no more. Light gives us the ability to bust through all the walls you've helped us build up. Darkness, you are no longer welcome. Fight, we shall. Win, Light has already has! You. Have. Lost.

Lightning you are fueled by electricity voltage. You are powerful. You hold the ability to burn and destroy. But, often what is hidden in darkness needs to be destroyed. We need to say a forever goodbye, so life is not consumed by darkness and shadows of what could be. On the other side of destroying what is weighing us down and holding us back from being who we are created to be is... a masterpiece. A masterpiece painted in the sky. A display of the work our Creator desires to do in our lives. He desires to illuminate our darkness to bring light, life and love into our being.

Dear Light, you are inspiring and powerful. You are wise, you listen more than you talk, displaying the rawness of what communication is. You visualize both pain and celebration. You are a catalyst of love, because love also says: "darkness, you have no power here....you gotta go!" Love and light give no promises to darkness except that "you are not welcome here." You are a reminder of power. You are reminder of actions over screaming. You illuminate the good, the bad and the ugly. You urge us to seek a better way. You are a guide. You are a teacher.

LOVE  -->  POWER  -->  LIGHT  -->  LIFE

Living in light or darkness is a choice. 

Nobody has the ability to make that choice for us.

Light filled life or darkness clouded reality? 

Darkness means a falsehood of celebration and the reality of pain with no hope and no joy. 

Light means pain and celebration are on the table...visualized, but able to be worked through and brought to strength. 

Light & Love

Light & Love are powerful. 

They penetrate far below the surface. 

They can bring out years of hurt and pain to allow a full WHOLE person to emerge. 

Light & Love are the hope when life is complexed, overwhelming and beaten down. 

Light & Love offer the ability to impact people on a real level. 

It says, yes to joy even if it's a fight.

Light is not easy to construct. Thomas Edison knew a hundred-and-one ways NOT to make a light build, BUT he knew one way to build a light that illuminates a home, street, office or etc.

I know many ways to encounter darkness, but I know ONE way and ONE way only to live in hopeful, grace given and loving light. The light is a living canvas. One Man who laid His life down to give you light. To give you hope. To give you joy. One man changed everything, darkness had to flee, because light was forever breaking though. This is the forever exchange. The exchange of no hope, no grace and no love for all hope, all grace and all love.

Light and Love....They have won!

Is it time to exchange the grip on darkness for the freedom of The Light?

The Essence of Reflection

Tonight, I chased the sunset only to be reminded to be the moon. On my run, “Sun & Moon” by Phil Wickham kept being pressed on my spirit. Thus, I got lost in the lyrics and trying to comprehend the magnitude of these lyrics: 

“If You are the sun then I wanna be the moon. 

I wanna reflect the light that shines from You!”

The reality is, the moon has no light without the sun. The sun’s light hits the moon’s surface and give it light and beauty. But, what really happens when the moon reflects the sun? Let’s have a little study session.  A cool fact, the light the moon reflects is only 3-12% of the sunlight that hits it.  The brightest reflection happens during full moon, that means, there is practically a straight line between the sun and the moon. 

New moon is the darkest period of reflection (no existence) because the moon is between the sun and the earth. The day following new moon is a concept called earthshine. Earthshine is still quite dark with dark disk illuminated by the sunlight, but not as bright because the sun that hits the moon is reflecting off earth.

I’ll be honest with y’all, I didn’t know all that information off the top of my head. I rushed home, opened my laptop and begin researching. I wanted to figure out why those lyrics set so heavy and the strength, sacrifice and love those words encompassed. Also, I want those words to become actions and those actions to become an increasingly more lifestyle.

So, here are the facts God is the sun and we are the moon. We have no light without Christ. Light without Christ is absolutely impossible. He was the Creator of light from the beginning of time (Genesis 1:3) and remains the owner of light through eternity. 

In Psalms 27:1 it says, God is both our light and our salvation. The owner of light is the owner of life. Then again in John 8:12 it is written:

“I am the light of the world. Anyone who follows Me will never walk in the 
darkness but will have the light of life.” 

Let that soak in, read it again. 

Accepting Christ is accepting light and life. Y’all, that is radical! Picture the time you were most scared, heart racing and almost to a point of tears. What if the light shut off? What if there was no light to begin with? There would be no rescue from that point, only greater darkness. Yet, the creator of light…THE CREATOR offers a light that will never go out. Where is the source of your light?

Upon accepting such a bright offer we now reflect (embody) the only true source of Light. He allows his glory to reflect off of us. How’s your reflection? Are you going through a new moon phase? Is the light dimming and the world becoming your reflection?

The moon is on a rotation; I view those as seasons in life.  Earthshine is giving into temptations and earthly desires. Full moons is when we are hand-n-hand with Christ, walking with him and fully reflect His life. Seasons can consist of great highs and lows with the Lord, but we need to strive for complete reflection of Christ.

Think of this: When we are at a full moon, the Son is in front of us and the Earth is below us. We are living in His Presence while giving light to those walking in darkness on Earth. 

As a fellow sister in Christ, I want to encourage all my new and old, young and old brothers and sisters to be full mooners. Refrain from being timid, complacent and selfish with the full moon. Let the reflection of the Creator’s light shine bright. 

Let’s take on the world as the Full Moon revival;

 reflecting a Son that never loses His flame!

Hope is a Choice

"Because You’re all I want, You’re all I need, You’re everything.” This is the cry of my heart, and it has become my anthem. The beauty of everything is now vastly more apparent. The magnitude of God opened up to a life I never knew existed; a life of abundance even during the greatest hardships and trials.

What if I said, the sun always sets, and rises, with hope and a new day? Would you believe it? How about if I said, the Son died and rose with hope? Would you believe that? Each day, actually ever second within that day, we are offered a life of hope. Jesus does not offer condemnation, but He does present constant hope—and yes, God does teach us lessons, but that doesn’t mean there is no hope. If we believe that every day is a new day, why can’t we believe that Jesus offers new hope for everyday? God doesn’t examine our record and see if we are worthy of being part of His family. He made a way through giving up His perfect Son, making Him imperfect so we as imperfect sinful people could be part of His family.

Is that too much theological gibberish for you? Okay, fine by me, how about we make it easier to understand? A great man from my church back home once described it like this: “You’re swimming in the ocean. There is nothing around you, but the largest waves you’ve ever experienced. Waves that continue to knock you deeper, and deeper, into the depths of a never-ending sea. You are losing the ability to breath and lost all hope of survival. The whole time there has been a life vest thrown to you. A float that not only offers hope, but survival and you have two options. One options is to ignore the life vest and continue sinking deeper, and deeper, continuing to fight on your own with no hope. The second option is to cling to the life vest of hope. It’s a choice, the life vest is present, but we don’t have to take hold of it.”

Would you like to mix the two terminologies? The ocean represents the life we are living. The waves represent everything that can be thrown at us, and our sin, such as: stress, anxiety, lust, serving other gods, pain, suffer and etc. The life vest is salvation, and an invitation, into God’s family. God will not make us join His family, but He is the only one to offer constant hope in and a world of constant hardships. 

What is your choice?

This is only the beginning of life with hope; there are numerous other magnitudes of blessings and life in abundance to be offer. Are you curious? Ask me! How about we partner together and help you figure it out? Life is beautiful; we just need a little help to see all the beauty admits the trials. 

Come Fly With Me

Well folks, I am on a Holy Spirit led adventure. This journey has an interesting story and many Godimonies; a testimony completely filled, to the brim, with God and His Holiness. Just like every other story out there, let’s start at the beginning.

We had a lot of ruckus going on back home, and needed to rekindle and reboot our systems so, my mommy and I took a getaway in early May to Charleston, South Carolina. It was on a whim and we almost went to Pensacola, Florida, but the weather looked awful there. Thus, God brought us to Charleston. We stayed on the beach called Isle of the Palms, but favored Sullivan’s Island. I’ll never forget my mom’s tears of joy and when she told me, “Take a picture of the foot prints in the sand. Those are God’s footprints and He’s carrying me.” Amen Momma!  

Numerous hours were spent roaming through all the historical streets of downtown and walking on the beach. During one of our walks, I looked at mom and said, “I’m moving to Charleston.” Me being the wonderer I am, mom asked, “for a camp or something?” Nope, not for a camp, I wanted to live here. Thus, I started the search for a way to make it happen.

Jesus sweetly reminded me of my passion for  ‘lil kiddos, and pushed me to look in that area. I did. Now, I am living in Charleston as a live-in Nanny for a little two-year-old boy. Folks, that’s just the beginning of God’s great works in my life. God truly cares about our desires, and often puts them in our hearts, let Him in—you’ll be amazed at His above and beyond mentality.

As the weeks led up to my move here, I constantly prayed for three things: a church, community and friends. My goal was to find those in the first couple months. I can imagine Jesus laughed at that goal, smile and said, “Just wait and watch me work.” Within four days, ninety-six hours, my Jesus had given me all three. A church. A community. Friends. I want to thank every person who prayed for me and continues to pray—prayers have been and continue to be answered! He’s ever faithful!

Awaken Church, a church plant of less than two years, is completely filled with the Holy Spirit and seeking Christ full-on. They desire to reach Charleston and see everyone in it Awakened to the love of the Lord. As my lovely Vineyard family would say, “come on, Jesus!” Not only is Awaken reaching their community via truth and being Jesus. They partner together with one another to form a close-knit community welcoming to all—Thanks Beth for getting me involved. Oh yeah, Beth was the one who greeted us at the door, and then helped me get signed up for small group after church. One person’s generosity of time and love is enough to awaken the world, one person at a time.

Then, within church, I found this community of young adults—folks my age, completely in love with Jesus and desiring to see Him show-up and show-out. After four short days, I was getting invited to go hang out with these folks. That's not normal, but when our steps get inline with Jesus’s steps, the path is one not understood by the world, but full of joy for those who believe. The community opened up a circle of friends, friends who I’ve connected with so rapidly. That’s Holy Spirit stuff if y’all ask me.

On Wednesday, July 30^th, I will have lived here three weeks. In those three weeks I’ve had the joy of experiencing numerous different activities, some simple and some more extravagant. I’ve spent two days lying on the beach, reading and jumping wave—for this Kentucky gal, that’s extravagant. Do you know the water never stops; it keeps coming up from the depths to the surface and does that over-and-over? That’s how Jesus works; He’s full of depth, but surfaces and digs deeper over-and-over again. There is always MORE where our relationship with Christ is concerned.

I’ve ran over a super tall, super long bridge, which is a huge victory for me. Bekah, me, myself and I do not do bridges—like no. But, when fear is conquered, victory arises; there is beauty in conquering our fears. Running the Ravenal Bridge was breathtaking, the fear vanished and beauty stepped in.

This past weekend, on Friday, I ran a half-marathon, which ended up being 14.2 miles. It started at the stroke of midnight and we, my new friend Erin and I, finished a little before two o-clock in the morning. The finish line happened to be in the ocean. So, let me sum this race up for you—midnight, long run, beach feet, fantastic, minus one toenail equals an amazing experience.

The past two weeks I’ve spent with friends, once at Red’s Ice House listening to some folks from church play music. The next over at the lake hanging out, floatin’, paddle boarding and soaking up the sun, and the Son, for the matter of fact.

Photo Credit:Trent Howard

And that folks is my favorite part, new friends who simply want to live life together. 

Simple, yet profound.

God’s blessings continually astonish me; He is breathtaking and worthy of all we are. This my friends is the most valuable relationship you can invest your time in. An invest that will never drop out of the market, or leave you. An investment that invest more in you, then you in Him. “Ask and it shall be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be open unto you,” Matthew 7:7.

I’m in a season of flying with Jesus, a season of exploration and extravagant growth. 

What season are you in?