Scarlet Colored

Where to start. I have no idea. The last 10 months have been in many ways the darkest I have ever seen. In a way that was new to me. I was more lost than I have ever been. I have written about being on a healing road , trying to find "home". Last February I began to wander off that road. At first I sat looking at the road, but then I wandered. And after wandering I ran. You may or may not have read that I ran hard and fast with eyes wide shut . Fleeing into a darkness in which I lied to myself and said was light. Once there it was hard to see any light. The darkness covered my heart and my soul. The truth always comes out. With truth comes light, real light. Light that exposes the filth that darkness hides. Filth that has made me shrink. Filth turned guilt that in darkness could hide now grips me in its tight embrace. Guilty fears make me want to hide. They make me want to stop searching for home, because I fear I don't deserve the finding. So alone I sit. Afraid to reach out. Afraid to hear that which I already tell myself. Guilty fears- becuase when it comes down to it I knew better. I knew better than to wander. I knew better than to run. I knew better than to believe the lies and the liars. I knew better than to become the liar. I knew better than to act upon the lies...to eat the berries and be caught in the thorns . So here I stand scarlet colored and very alone. Hurt and hurting, both myself and others. Afraid to share. Afraid and ashamed of what will be thought of me, but also knowing that I deserve the thoughts. So tell me, where do I go and what do I do from here, because all I want to do is dig a hole and hide from what I know is the truth and the fear of being exposed.

These words below I treasure, because God Himself has pardoned my sins and to Him I am reconciled, but how do I pardon myself and climb out of the hole in which I have dug?

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Arise, my soul, arise; shake off thy guilty fears;
The bleeding sacrifice in my behalf appears:
Before the throne my surety stands,
Before the throne my surety stands,
My name is written on His hands.

He ever lives above, for me to intercede;
His all redeeming love, His precious blood, to plead:
His blood atoned for all our race,
His blood atoned for all our race,
And sprinkles now the throne of grace.

Five bleeding wounds He bears; received on Calvary;
They pour effectual prayers; they strongly plead for me:
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Forgive him, O forgive,” they cry,
“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”

The Father hears Him pray, His dear anointed One;
He cannot turn away, the presence of His Son;
His Spirit answers to the blood,
His Spirit answers to the blood,
And tells me I am born of God.

My God is reconciled; His pardoning voice I hear;
He owns me for His child; I can no longer fear:
With confidence I now draw nigh,
With confidence I now draw nigh,
And “Father, Abba, Father,” cry.

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Naked honesty..baring it all.

Gen 2:25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

Gen 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate.

Gen 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.


It is my contention that Adam and Eve's nakedness had very little to do with their physical bodies, but it had everything to do with their spiritual ones. Before the fall they were sin free and had no reason to hide. All their thoughts, their pleasures, their pains, it was all laid out before one another and there was no shame in them. After the fall, they had sin and a sin nature. As soon as they looked at one another they could see it. They could see their sin in one another's nakedness and so what did they do, they tried to hide. They wanted to cover that new part of them and they fashioned clothes about them to try and conceal it.

Have you ever been sharing a secret with someone that is very personal and the sharing is hard? The kind of thing that exposes you, lays you naked before that other person? Now this may just be a girl thing, or a me thing, but when I have been in that place of naked honesty, my first instict is to grab something and shield myself with it. Typically the object of choice is a pillow, or my knees, depending on the location. I want an extra layer of protection between my inner being and that other person. I am trying to cover my shame, my hurt, my open-ness.

Gen 3:9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, "Where are you?"

Gen 3:10 So he said, "I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself."

 At this point I think it is interesting that Adam tells God that he is still naked. He and Eve had already covered themselves with leaves, but yet I think Adam realized that his soul was what was left bare and no amount of hiding could shield him from God.

How often do I try and fashion coverings for myself, try and hide from God? " Don't look behind this bush Lord, don't look here behind that clump of leaves. This is my nakedness, Lord. Please don't look upon it. "

Yet, God knows exactly where I am. He can see past those feeble atempts at hiding and I am laid bare before Him.

Gen 3:21 Also for Adam and his wife the LORD God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.

God knew that Adam and Eve's attempts to cover their sin would not be sufficient. It would take a sacrifice to cover them. So God provided. He covered them with that sacrifice.

As much as I try to hide, try to cover my own sins, I can't. Though I were to fashion a forest around me God could still see through it all. It takes a sacrifice.


1Jo 4:10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.


God provided for me.  Though covered with dirt and leaves, God sent a sacrifice, His Son.  I am clothed in Jesus, covered by His atoning blood.  I no longer need to try and hide before the throne. I am covered.  Amen!



*This is not where I was planning to go with this tonight.  I had a different plan in my head, but maybe this is where God was wanting to take my heart.  To pull me out of the bushes, pluck the leaves from my hair, lovingly wipe the dirt smudges from my face and remind me that I am covered.  Though my heart aches, I am covered.  Though my mind deceives me, I am covered.  Though I struggle and still want to hide, I am covered.  I am covered.  I am covered!  Thank you Lord for your covering!*

Letting It Go Lane

In my Tuesday morning ladies group at church we are reading a book on prayer.  This weeks chapter of the book dealt with forgiveness being a part of an effective prayer life.  Our leader challenged us to consider someone who we haven't forgiven and to pray that we be forgiven for not forgiving them, that we would forgive them, and to be given love for them.  Now, I am generally a very forgiving person.  So, I sat there rather smugly and thought to myself that I have no one who I need to forgive. Then the quiet stillness of this morning came.

Last weekend I was at an event where I was re-acquainted with someone who I had met before.  I couldn't place how I knew this person at first, but she remembered me.  As the day progressed I remembered her quite well.  This person is a person whose language almost drips with judgement and condescension.  If these two things were an art form she would be Picasso.  It is aparant that she feels her parenting choices and her children are perfect and that everyone else comes up quite short.  Typically in my dealings with her she had painted her canvas of judgement using other people's children.  Saturday, I was her brush of choice.  As I let Klayton (my 6 month old) have the eensiest little tastes of cake filling she looked at me and said, "I guess by the time you have your 7th one anything goes."  Then she went on about how her children hadn't even had real birthday cake, but banana bread instead on their first birthdays...yadda, yadda, yadda.  Paint splattered everywhere.  I sat there, biting my tongue, trying to ignore as much of her as I could. 

Then here comes this morning.  As I was laying in bed, in that space between fully awake and not quite asleep, I began thinking.  I began thinking of all the lovely comments I could have said to put her in her place.  To shut her down.  Let her know that she was not all that.  It was then I realized.  She had grieved me and I was not filled with love for her, nor was I in a state of forgiveness about that.  I can't currently say that I am at the point right now either.  I am caught at the crossroads of feeling self righteous in my annoyance with her and letting it go.

I am trying to remember that I have stuck my foot in my mouth many times.  I too have swirled  judgement broadly upon a canvas.  A time in particular is when I went up to a good friend of mine and told her " I just want you to know it's her personality and not your parenting.".  I still cringe at the memory of that.  I am sure she felt judged in that moment.  I hope she knows that I am sorry for it.  I was at a place where I was feeling insecure in my parenting.  I had heard all these stories from our mutual friend about how amazing her daughter was and how she cleaned up everything before she got something else out.  I felt like my children and I were somehow threatened by that, that I was somehow less a parent than she, because my kids could create a mess faster than the Tazmanian devil on speed.  It was from that place that I said those words. 

Maybe just maybe this woman doesn't think her parenting is all that and a side of organically grown baked veggie chips.  Maybe she is just as insecure as I am.  Who knows.  I should give her the benefit of the doubt though and turn the corner off of Self Righteous Ave and go down Letting It Go Lane. 

*Kelli, I hope you know I think you are a great Mom!  If I could ever erase that moment in time I would. I  hope that those words spoken out of my insecurity didn't grieve your heart as much as they have grieved mine these last 7 years!*

**DISCLAIMER: there is absolutely nothing wrong with organically grown baked veggie chips or having banana bread as birthday cake. **