Juleeta C. Harvey

Empowering Women to Believe Body Truth

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Hungry

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Isaiah 58:10-12, The Message translation

“If you are generous with the hungry and start giving yourselves to the down-and-out, Your lives will begin to glow in the darkness, your shadowed lives will be bathed in sunlight.  I will always show you where to go. I’ll give you a full life in the emptiest of places – firm muscles, strong bones. You’ll be like a well-watered garden, a gurgling spring that never runs dry.  You’ll use the old rubble of past lives to build anew, rebuild the foundations from out of your past. You’ll be known as those who can fix anything, restore old ruins, rebuild and renovate, make the community livable again.”

Father, because today is already full of unmet needs right in front of me and the day hasn’t even started, please remove my guilt about the hungry who I cannot help.  Let the needs in the beds that sleep next to mine be enough.

I know their hearts are hungry, and they are the foundations I am blessed to rebuild. My children are the spring that runs out of my past. Please help me take the time required to feed the hungry souls right in front of me truth.

Your truth about who You are is what they crave.

 

 

Leaving Space for Love

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Isaiah 43:1-4The Message (MSG)

 “But now, God’s Message,
    the God who made you in the first place, Jacob,
    the One who got you started, Israel:
“Don’t be afraid, I’ve redeemed you.
    I’ve called your name. You’re mine.
When you’re in over your head, I’ll be there with you.
    When you’re in rough waters, you will not go down.
When you’re between a rock and a hard place,
    it won’t be a dead end—
Because I am God, your personal God,
    The Holy of Israel, your Savior.
I paid a huge price for you:
    all of Egypt, with rich Cush and Seba thrown in!
That’s how much you mean to me!
    That’s how much I love you!
I’d sell off the whole world to get you back,
    trade the creation just for you.”

Fear penetrates most of my decisions. As a mother, I have learned how to wield fear around like a crazy woman who claims she has precise training that comes with almost twelve years of experience. But the truth is this. The more I allow fear to drive what I choose from the pantry to feed my children for dinner or use fear as my motivation to talk to my child about why he should use his manners in public, the more I dig a hole.

The darker, deeper the hole, the more impenetrable it is to the light.  I am deceived when I think that protection is the end goal of this motherhood journey.  Protection of myself and how another mom might perceive me.  Protection of my children and how the world might speak of them when they leave a room.  And, worse. I claim all this fear that drives me is really for our own good. For our own goodness sake.

As mothers, our Father invites us to release fear in exchange for love. He paid a price for us that was never fear driven. His saving us was always love motivated.  He exclaims His love for us in His presence, His Holy Spirit ,that came to the earth to dwell with us.

He hears your voice, your plea, to release this great burden. In exchange, we get to relish in is His personal love.

Why We Are Doing This…

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2 Corinthians 3:16-18  “Whenever, though, they turn to face God as Moses did, God removes the veil and there they are—face-to-face! They suddenly recognize that God is a living, personal presence, not a piece of chiseled stone. And when God is personally present, a living Spirit, that old, constricting legislation is recognized as obsolete. We’re free of it! All of us! Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him.” 
—The Message translation
We are doing this (way of educating young people) because we want to see God, unveiled and beautiful. And we hope, moreover, that our children will see our Almighty Father as HE is — creator, maker of all things historical and lovely, the one who orders the universe, mathematically, scientifically, geographically.
In the world, when we choose to see someone for who she really is and dare to look behind the mask that keeps her safe from over-vulnerability in a unsafe world of pain, loneliness, and forever seeking, then we can begin to love her.
It is much the same with our Father.
Except, in our seeking, we are the ones who have to take off our masks to see.  Out of deep, searching, sorting-through-baggage trust will our love grow for God.  That trust and love will change us.
We are doing this for transformation.

Renew Us

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“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.”              –Ezekiel 36:26-27, The Message.

My children finished their last day of school today, and I am thankful to be breathing in what feels like new air. With the end of school comes time, time my family desperately needs. Time I desperately need. I have been praying that God would carve out time for me to write. And so I start tonight. In this, I hope to reach out and encourage those of you who are educating your children at home some and school some. I look forward to see where God will lead us by his power and amazing grace! Praying we will ask Him to change our hearts, from self-willed to God-willed as we walk through this together.