The Call to Battle (Pt 1)

Well, all our renovating is finished and we have a new kitchen and a new floor.....

It actually wasn't as  bad  as  I thought.  I quite liked the change in routine and had fun trying to set myself up in the garage and cook for everyone.  My oldest son said, I looked like one of those squatters.  Ha!

So this year our plan is to sell our townhouse and move to a place closer to the childrens school. 

We have been standing on many of God's Promises. even though  all around us it would seem we are not seeing the fulfillment of them yet.... 

   At the beginning of the year I was reading in the book of Joel and my eyes were drawn to this scripture :

Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong (joel 3:10)

I read it several times. I knew that this year was going to be a year to really take up the battle and not hold back for many areas of my life. 
As I studied the verse, I wondered what PLOWSHARES and PRUNING HOOKS were. So of course I do what every busy 21st century gal/warrior does;
I googled it!

plow·share

noun \ˈplau̇-ˌsher\

: the part of a plow that digs into the soil

So it seemed to me that a plowshare is a tool that everyday farmers use for tilling the soil and turning over the ground. 

 I looked at the 'soil', the 'field' in my  everyday life and what has been placed in my hand, and saw what my PLOWSHARE was. 

My everyday life is a field that is rich with soil.

I AM plowing everyday. 

 With hearts that I am responsible for.

 My husband, children,friends and whoever God places in my world.

But God was not asking me to put down my plowshare... He was asking me to BEAT my plowshare into a sword!!. 

BEAT my plowshare!

 (MY EVERYDAY TILLING AND WORKING IN THE FIELD HE HAS ENTRUSTED ME)

and BEAT it into a sword!!

So from this...

to this.....

Wow! How do I do that??


I am currently reading a book titled :
Girls with Swords ( how apropos) right? 

In this book she has a chapter on forging a sword.

"The process of making a sword is a whole lot like the  process of making a life...." (pg 105)

"With the forging of a sword, there is repeated hammering.." (pg 105)

"The process of sword making is not altogether different from that of weaving. Once heated, that which is stiff becomes pliable enough to braid and twist, thus creating a tension that fuses the separate strands into a whole." (pg 106)

"Likewise God uses the element of fire, water and pressure to refine His daughters in order to transform our weaknesses into strengths, our rigidity into flexibility. He shapes a shapeless life into one of sharp and focused purpose."(pg 106)

There is so much in these words to unpack!!  Our life is where the sword is being forged.  Through the hard times when the pressure is on and the 'heat' is turned up is actually the making of our sword.  Our brokenness, our mess, our weaknesses are all 'braided' together to make a glorius focused life. 
I love this!!

If we as women are going to step forward into forging our sword, forging our life into what He has planned for us, we have to expect to have a battle on our hands.
So every trial, every test is tempering us for a greater life. 

I am not too sure about what the whole process looks like for each one of our lives,but I want to encourage everyone that when we are in the midst of the fire, it is forging a beautiful sword that we can then use as a weapon to have victory in our lives.

Learning about LIFE through Renovating

 

We have just taken on our first renovating ever! Our little townhouse is getting a mini makeover.  The floors are being ripped up and new tiles going down.  When we took the floor up we were amazed to find that roots had come in underneath the floor and were growing in the house!

All these mini fern like plants had started to feed their way across the concrete and grow. This was so astounding to me as I just could not beleive that they could actually grow in the house. But then it proved to me that LIFE can happen anywhere! Given natural light, moisture and soil like the song goes: 

 

 EVEN THE DEEPEST SEED FINDS THE LIGHT OF DAY

(thank you DC Talk for those lyrics).

 

In my small house sometimes I can overlook what is right in front of me! 

That right underneath my feet, unbeknown to me, LIFE was growing.

LIFE IS HAPPENING! LIFE IS UNFOLDING! Whether I choose to have my eyes open to see it or not. 

Right now in the midst of my renovations, my dearest friend lost her husband. Suddenly, no warning, just gone. So unfolding before my eyes, is this story of her heart, her new journey. Do you know what she chose to do in the midst of her loss? She gathered her friends to her home  a few days after, and opened it up for praise and worship.  What a way to deal with loss.  She knows her husband is with His Creator, and she just wants to thank the Lord and praise Him for His goodness. I love this girlfriend, and she has me in awe of her right now.

  And the same week I am starting a program for Girls to place value, strength and purpose in their life.  Creating and putting things together to show these young girls how much they are loved.

Everything happening at once. LIFE COMING AT ME FAST!

 

But this is LIFE.......

 

Comforting those who mourn

Encouraging one another

Stopping amidst the chaos to praise Him

and lets not forget..Renovating

 

So here I am walking on concrete floors, squeezing past things in my bedroom to get to my bed, because all the furniture has been shoved anywhere just so we can rip up the floor, but I am loving that I am in the midst of this crazy life. 

Somehow I think that I thought that I would be renovating my house, and I would be focused on the task at hand,

 

but LIFE in not always scheduled, nor a respecter of convenience.

 

LIFE, just like my roots that had started to grow inside my lounge, has this ability to spread itself out, and continuing to grow, despite circumstances or routine. It  will creep up on you unexpectantly, not to scare you, but to beckon you to come out and see beyond what is front of you.

A heart enlargement

Now I am finding my life starting to expand in many ways. But I find its my heart that had to be enlarged first.

I was waiting for everything else outside to expand and my outside world to get bigger, but it was my interior world that had to grow first. To have this wide open spacious life, must we not first look to making our inner man enlarged. Yes, because once our heart is enlarged, we are seeing and experiencing everything in a wider capacity. Our heart is the inner chamber to our desires, fears, thoughts, emotions. It is a key to our lives expanding. And though it is such a small member, it is HUGE and plays a major part in whether our life will go from strength to strength or diminish. After all proverbs reminds us, no - admonishes us, even dare I say warns us to " guard our hearts ABOVE ALL ELSE, for out of it flows ALL THE ISSUES OF LIFE. ". An unguarded heart is like a city which lies unprotected, unwalled. It is vulnerable and an easy target.
My heart was in need of repair. My fortress had been shot at, I had let my guard down. So many arrows had made a dent.

How did i know my heart was hurting? Because what was coming out of my ' spring' was not good. A negative comment here, a cynical remark there, a put down and some criticism on the side. My heart was not well. I did not like what I had become inwardly. Now instead of my world getting larger, it was growing horribly smaller, even to the point of no space to breath.
I had thought it was because of my surroundings. You know, living in a small townhouse with 5 children, a husband and two guinea pigs. No yard except a communal road outside. Neighbors drinking, quarrelling and knowing too much about everyone's business, was becoming suffocating. So I did what I thought would be best. I complained, I allowed poison to roll off my lips. I became entwined with bitterness, that a root actually clutched itself to the tendons of my heart. If only my surroundings would change then I could be happy, if only....waiting for outward shifts while my inward heart was slowly making its own toxic changes.

Soil that was being invaded by the wrong seeds.
Many sorrowful nights and nights of waiting for change. Until I realized I could be the one to make the change! I could be the change I want to see. My life already was wide open and spacious, I was the one making it small. Just as the apostle Paul pleaded with the Corinthian church that it was not him who made their life small, it was them, if only they would open their hearts and live openly and expansively.

My life began when I started to look to the inner heart to be enlarged then my whole world was about to be enlarged......

So many times we yearn to have lives that are spacious.  Spacious in our  physical surroundings, spacious with our time, spacious within our hearts.  But instead we feel restricted, confined and  that we are living life from a place of restriction. So what is space? 

Space is: 

· continuous extension,

· immeasurable expanse in which solar and stellar systems etc are situated. 

· Region beyond earth’s atmosphere. 

· Interval between two points or objects

· Sufficient extent or room

Spacious means:  having AMPLE space; roomy.

This is something that was familiar with the Corinthian church as Paul writes to them almost pleading,

Dear Dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide open, spacious life.  We didn’t fence you in.  The smallness you feel comes from within you.  Your lives aren’t small but you are living them in a small way.  I’m speaking plainly as I can and with great affection.  Open up your lives.  Live openly and expansively. 

No matter where we live physically, we can open up our lives and hearts to live LARGE SPACIOUS LIVES.

Come with me as I journey into living a wide open spacious life......