Heart

WE Are The Church

/ bobbiblanchard / 4 Comments

Below is an open letter to our church family along with pictures of the gift that accompanied it.

July 6, 2016

 

Dear Faith Community Church,

Six years ago I brought my family to Faith Community Church for the first time for a Christmas Eve service. At the time, this was going to be my third, and final, attempt to see if God was what was missing from my life. The Holy Spirit revealed The Gospel to me that day through a creative portrayal of life before the coming of our Savior and the sharing of The Gospel throughout the message.

By nature and experience I am a cautious person and had zero knowledge of the Bible. So, for the next several years Jesus met me here, as I was, where I was, and FCC became my classroom. I learned the importance of obedience and through small (yet significant for me) acts of obedience I made enough connections to become comfortable here. Eventually taking a Bible 101 class that made me more comfortable digging into His Word on my own, my classroom extended into my everyday life. An invitation by a beloved sister in Christ to coffee led to my first Bible Study. In September 2014, we made a large step of obedience in dedicating our children, Jordan, Joelle & Jace to the Lord and acknowledging that they truly belong to Him. An entire sanctuary of you committed to help raise them in Christ, as part of this church family. I wonder now, if you realized what you might be called to do, and that you would follow through so beautifully?

When we received Joelle’s first diagnosis, you wept with us, you prayed with and for us, you paid for and encouraged me to attend a women’s retreat during which I was able to surrender to God’s will and start our family’s healing process through His peace and comfort.

When we received a second diagnosis, this time for both Joelle and Jordan, you continued to lift us up in prayer, lead us to His word, and remind us of His great love and plans for these children.

Then, when financial stress in the form of years of expensive medical testing and astronomical prescription costs overwhelmed us, you opened the doors to FCC and your hearts. You gave incredibly generously of your time, giftings, and resources for two fundraisers that have helped us to more fully rest in God’s grace and provision for our family. You showed us, and many others, the beauty of Christ’s bride; that through a building of broken sinners, God’s glory can shine.

FCC was the building I brought my family to years ago. But, you the church, through your love and obedience to Christ, have been our teachers, brothers and sisters in Christ, and become our church family.

Words can’t express our gratitude for the blessings given to us through you and your willingness to walk this journey beside us, helping us to walk with Jesus.

This glass was originally installed in a church sanctuary in Minnesota in 1922. The original panels were salvaged, re-cut, and reset by Tim, for you. We do not have the means to invest in the

ministry here in a substantial financial way right now. But, we pray that this gift to FCC, and the history behind it, would remind you and all of those that come in the doors in the future, not just of the aesthetic beauty of the glass, but the beauty of Christ’s bride, the people of the church. The hundreds that once sat beneath this glass in the past, those here at FCC now, and those that will come in the future.

 

Blessings,

Bobbi, Tim, Jordan, Joelle, & Jace

The response of our church family over the last year, and our gratitude for God’s grace and provision, through them, was as beautiful as it was humbling and more than a little overwhelming.

God has been so good to me in gifting me with words on paper to express my heart that I fear would overflow at times with gratitude if I didn’t have a way to get it out. Hubby had no such outlet or way to express this. The stained glass panels had been sitting in storage in a pole shed for several years. At the time, Hubby appreciated their history and beauty and knew I would love it too. He planned to have something made for me for my birthday or Christmas but over the years was unable to find someone that could work with the old, fragile, glass and lead.

His timing and grace never cease to move me. Hubby, with no prior experience and more than a few cuts and broken shards of glass, was able to make these panels. Blessed with a way to express his gratitude, both to the church family, and God, this was as much a gift to the church as it was to Hubby.

 

Pursuing Love In The Valley

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This week marked 14 years of marriage for Hubby and I. Though as a young bride I couldn’t have imagined the victories and valleys we’d share youth made me sure that we’d conquer both together, victorious.

I remember hearing of longtime, happily married couples whose lives had been shaken with grief and loss so powerful it was as if it had been an earthquake. A perfect “10” and the aftershocks had left their marriage in the rubble. I’d also heard of happily married couples who’d taken that rubble, and rebuilt something stronger, and more beautiful out of the pieces that were left. images (18)I often wondered what had happened to the latter. I couldn’t imagine a scenario in which Hubby and I would not cling to the one person under the sun who knew us best. After all, we’d experienced hardship and loss before. We are so very different by nature that where one of us had been weak, the other had been strong. Those strengths and weaknesses had complimented each other and served as tools to help each other through.

But what happens when you are both weak? When neither of you have any strength? When both of your plates are full to overflowing with grief, pain, loss, stress and worry and your cups are empty? How do you help your spouse balance those emotions when your own plate is dangerously close to dropping? You can’t.

I couldn’t. This last year we experienced our own perfect “10” and what I found was that my cup was empty. I barely had the strength to balance my own plate, never mind relieve some of Hubby’s burden. I could not lighten his load. I could not cure our children. I could not pay the mounting medical bills. I could not give him peace and comfort when I struggled just to save myself. So I prayed to the One who could.

Isaiah 40:29

29 He gives strength to the weary
    and increases the power of the weak.

Father, please take this from me! But if this is Your will, please fill my cup and give me the strength to bear it. Please lighten this overflowing plate.

Ah, but He already did.

And He was patiently waiting for me to remember that He himself would carry the load. Would give me His strength. Had already offered to fill that plate and cup with His bread and wine!download (1).jpg

As I surrendered more to Him,my burden became lighter (Bread is rather light) and He filled that cup with strength born of hope. And made me aware that I needed to love Hubby. Not the feeling, that was still there. But the action.

Father, I don’t know how to help Hubby, Please give me the strength, wisdom, and knowledge to love him the way he needs right now. 

I was reminded of a message years ago images (14)by our pastor in which he shared praying for God to help him see and love his wife as He does. This ended up being to make the bed,but I was sure that wasn’t the answer for Hubby (Though I’m ALL for expressions of love that include a tidy bed). I was really sure that Hubby was going to need a lot more. So….

God, please give me Your eyes so I can see. Help me to see him and love him as You do.

images (13)

That’s it? It does not seem like enough. Not for this.

But when I kept my focus on meeting Hubby where he was, as he was, being patient and kind, and praying continuously to see him as Jesus does, and love him as Jesus does it was a powerful thing. I became more aware of his pain and suffering, which was hard, but it naturally evoked more patience and kindness. And in return, lightened his load and opened his heart towards me and towards God.images (16).jpg

Yes, love is God, and God is love. And, our love is stronger and more beautiful now after pursuing it in this valley than it ever was before.

My cup overflows…..

images (15)

Follow Me

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I recently had the privilege of hearing a message from one of the founders of a relief organization called Tutapona. Eight years ago, Carl, his wife Julie, and their young family picked up and moved to Uganda to provide trauma and rehabilitation counseling to what would turn out to be thousands of refugees in the area. Carl provided an update of their progress, a victim’s heart wrenching story and the relief she found in the program, and plans for Tutapona‘s expansion to Iraq.

In a sanctuary full of Christians, Carl posed the question of how many Christians were truly followers of Christ. He maintains that to simply believe in Christ as our Lord and Savior, is not enough. A true transformation of the heart will cause a transformation of your life. We are called to be disciples. This term implies active participation on our part. An outward reflection of our inner faith.

dis·ci·ple

(dĭ-sī′pəl)

n.

1.

a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another.
b. An active adherent, as of a movement or philosophy.

Sharing several verses in which Jesus states “Follow Me”, it is pretty clear that Jesus intends us to, indeed, follow Him. (I searched on my own…and stopped counting at 19)

follow me 2

Often, when processing a message, I am gifted with images that help make sense of, and usher important information to be stored and filed in the orderliness of my long term memory. Over the past few days, I have a clear picture of a classroom full of Christians. All have professed to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Jesus silently enters the room and speaks two words.

Follow Me.

That’s it.

Now, there is a person in the front, center. Let’s call her A+Disciple. Her hand wildly waving, squirming in her chair, she’s practically shouting, “Ooh, Ooh, Pick me! Pick Me!”. The Christians in the back are mulling things over. I’m sitting in the middle, off to the left, unobtrusively hiding behind someone taller than I am. I take a couple of deep, bracing, breaths. You know the kind; in through the nose, out through the mouth. And resolutely raise my hand.

If I were to “unpack” my reserved response, I believe it’s not necessarily fear that has me mentally preparing myself. I think it has more to do with the seriousness of the invitation. The knowledge and respect of what this commitment requires. There’s a (not so nice) part of me that wonders if A+Disciple truly appreciates the gravity of what she’s signing up for. At the same time, noticing her unreserved joy at the offer makes me wonder what I am lacking in faith that makes me so somber at the thought of following Him through anymore valleys that I sometimes can’t hold onto the joy of the promise of my final destination?

(This is when I’m reminded of Julie. Bless her beautiful, honest, Christ filled,heart for sharing her lack of joy when first called to uproot her family from a place they’d grown to love and follow Jesus to Iraq. Was she willing to follow wherever He led her? Absolutely. But even she had a moment where she raised her hand without chair squirming, arm waving, JOY. I also like to think maybe she will be saving a seat for me next to her on the bus?)

follow me 6

A+Disciple is skipping to the bus while I am mentally “packing”. Repeating comforting scripture and pondering how many toothbrushes I should bring? After all, God seems to keep His itinerary pretty close to His chest. Now, A+Disciple is, of course, already on the bus, in the front seat, not so patiently waiting for the journey to begin. I see the loving smile Jesus welcomes her with and wonder if I’m worthy of the same reception. After all, I’m not exactly skipping in line, but putting one foot resolutely in front of the other while holding onto the promises written on my heart.

But He does.

He smiles at me with love and understanding. The same invitation. The same reception. Accepting me as I am, where I am.

Follow me.

Okay.

And those Christians now sitting, watching from the curb? He smiles at them with love too. Patiently waiting for them to pick up their cross, and follow Him too.

follow me 3

The disciples on the bus are surely in for hair pin turns, low valleys, some rough roads (after all, the road less traveled is bound to be bumpy) and the most beautiful destination. Sitting in the middle, staring at Jesus, I find the JOY. When I’m focused on Him, and not what’s coming up ahead, I find the joy in the knowledge that not only has He made a way for me, but He’ll be with me through the whole journey.

So where are you on your discipleship journey? Are you dancing with joy ready to leap into anything He calls you to? Are you sitting, prayerfully waiting for instruction? Or are you still sitting on the curb deciding if you really need to pick up your cross and follow Him?

follow me 4

UPDATE:

If you are already on “the bus”, are daring to be a Disciple, please take a moment to view the following video and prayerfully consider supporting the ministry of Tutapona either through prayer or a financial gift and help many more to follow Jesus. ❤

The Gift In The Concrete

/ bobbiblanchard / 4 Comments

The  last year and a half has been hard. Really hard. Watching your once “normal”, healthy, eight year old decline and helplessly standing by while dozens of tests and specialists tell you they don’t know what’s wrong has a way of slowly turning a parent inside out. You know it’s something serious, and you relentlessly pray for answers, but when you get them, you’re still grossly unprepared for the reality of it.

We now have TWO answers and I don’t like either one. The first is called Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 8. Rare, genetic, degenerative, and would slowly rob her of her mobility over about fifteen years. You can see my blogs, The Dark and Alibaster Jar if you’re interested in seeing where that brought me. The second, newest, is Cerebrotendinous Xanthomatosis. I held it together slightly better (growth?) the second time around. See Hope . Also rare, genetic, and progressive, this one explains her cognitive decline, personality changes, leg pain, etc. The good news is that this one has an available treatment. The idea being to replace what her body isn’t making and pray that we can maintain normal numbers and stop the progression. The bad news is that each of our boys has a 25% chance of having this disorder as well and we are waiting on their genetic test results.

I’ve blogged a lot about the pain, loss, and grief over this journey but He has faithfully brought me through and given me so much love, truth, and hope. Everything I need, when I need it most. Thank you Jesus! The last couple weeks I’ve been struggling through something a little less dramatic. Sadness. The kind of sadness that hovers silently in the shadows of my mind while joy, excitement, hope, love, fatigue, frustration and worry bump around the rest of the space in there, jostling for position. It’s heavy presence is always there. Waiting. Just waiting, for worry or frustration to bump up against it, form an alliance, and squeeze hot tears out of unsuspecting eyes. I’m finding this happens most often when I come face to face with our present reality. Without having a chance to brace myself first.

The other day we were tackling 3rd grade homework when frustration and worry ganged up on me with sadness. We spent an hour repeatedly going over which hand was the hour hand and which hand was the minute hand. Something she had mastered in first grade. Abstract concepts are next to impossible with her short term memory impairment. Twenty minutes later, her newfound impulsiveness led to a screaming toddler and crying 8 year old because she had gotten frustrated, pinched him, and immediately felt terrible. At bedtime, she told me she didn’t want to go to Sunday school because she got confused. There was truly less light in my baby girl’s eyes! By the time I went to bed, I was in tears.

Father, PLEASE! Please don’t let us lose the compassionate heart you blessed her with too! Please don’t allow this disorder to rob her of the ability to understand the huge faith you’ve given her! This heart, this faith, that have been such a source of hope and comfort. Such a gift of grace to us!

Sadness dogged me the next morning and followed me through her occupational therapy session which left her tremor worse, her body sweating and exhausted, and her complaining of the pain in her legs. And as I broke out the Motrin:

“Mom, I’m sad.”

She has a few things to be sad about. “Why are you sad, baby?”

“I’m sad for all of the people that lived before God gave us Jesus.”

Her compassionate heart! But that’s a pretty abstract concept to grasp. Does she really get it?

“I wish He could have helped them get to Heaven too. But I’m sure happy that we were born after Jesus!”

Smiling through tears. “Me too baby girl, me too.”

Tear filled eyes closed and lifted to a bitterly cold Midwest winter sun, being covered in His grace and love, my heart cried out my thanks for a gift so beautiful!

I have little difficulty with the abstract. I’ve been blessed with an exceptional memory. I have no physical challenges. I’m pretty sure I aced third grade word problems involving reading a clock. But, I didn’t know the Gospel until I was in my thirties, and I struggled to understand and accept the love of my Savior for longer than I care to admit. (It really is a kind of illogical love, isn’t it?!) And I’m too embarrassed to disclose how long it took my heart to bleed for those that were, and are, perishing. Her existence in the concrete, the present, has apparently not hindered her faith, or her compassionate heart in the slightest. It begs the question, which one of us truly has a greater challenge?!  He will make clear to her all she truly needs to know, just as He will for me.

Baby girl, you bring that beautiful heart and concrete faith, I will bring the abstract, and we will grow in Christ together!

 

1 Corinthians 12:4-11New International Version (NIV)

4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,[a] and to still another the interpretation of tongues.[b] 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

 

The Pursuit

/ bobbiblanchard / 5 Comments

I know God was with me for the first half of my life because, frankly, I survived. But when I look back to see when He started to pursue my heart, I am brought back to the tender age of 18.

I was very sure that the one who loved me the most, was myself. And that was the only person I could trust to do what was right for me and take care of me. The fortress I had built around my heart not only led me to seek people who required no commitment from me, it caused me to be controlling, anxious, and fearful. After all, protecting yourself is a lot to take on. But, overall, for my plans, it worked. I was a straight A student, preparing for college and success. However, protecting yourself almost always causes you to hurt other people. I will not share the details because I believe that they will not bless you, or glorify Him in any way. I will say that once in possession of my soft, squishy heart, I spent plenty of time confessing and repenting those sins and left them at the foot of the cross. I would have continued on with my “plan” had God not intervened. And boy did He!

He was six feet tall, covered in dirt and a smile. Fresh from a mosh pit, his clothes didn’t match and his collar bone was swollen. He was a cross between Pig Pen and the kid goofing off in the back of class. He offered to show me the back seat of his car, or my car, whichever was closer. I was not impressed. I’d had plenty of similar offers that night. And this is not a reflection of my vanity, but of the hormones of a 20 something male. Oh, physically speaking he was right up my alley. Solidly built with wide (although one swollen) shoulders, blonde and blue eyed and though dirty, legs that should really be in a magazine. And he made me laugh. Future Hubby was not at all what I was looking for. Thank God!!

It would be three more encounters before Future Hubby took me on a date. By the third week I knew I was in trouble. He was so very far from what I was looking for, yet I knew we fit better than I was comfortable with. We were polar opposites. Exactly what we needed. He breathes sports, I tolerate them and never play them. I love to read, he falls asleep after the third page. I like to dress up, he prefers nothing more than comfort. Matching is not on his list of priorities. He is messy, messes make me nervous. I like to plan, he flies by the seat of his (mismatched) pants. You get the picture. But he made me laugh. And right from the start it was obvious that this man was either the worlds best actor, or there wasn’t a shred of pretense about him. It was the latter. He is completely incapable of lying. The genuine article. You see, he possesses no filter. Thoughts travel directly from his brain, out his mouth. He is uncomfortable with anything resembling untruth. Seventeen years later, and I can not think of a single instance in which he has been deliberately mean or hurt someone’s feelings on purpose. What he lacks in social skills, he makes up for in loyalty, sincerity, and dependability. Much like a Labrador retriever, but less hair.

He was exactly what my untrusting, fearful, guarded heart needed. He brought me out of my “safe” box, made me laugh at myself, and stop living five years in the future. He brought me laughter, joy, and relief from the path I had set myself on. He was the chink in my armor. How could I not trust someone so genuine and true to who he was?

There are plenty of times that I am certain our differences will drive me crazy. (Think basketball player that cannot manage to hit the hamper with his underwear.) And then, I will be in full panic mode about something that isn’t going according to my plan, and he will laugh at me, hug me, and tell me everything will be okay. I will be about ready to throttle him while he’s watching some sport and not hearing a word I’m saying and there will be a commercial break and he will have our toddler laughing so hard he’d pee himself if he was potty trained.

I know that God’s plan included Hubby. I am so very grateful that in His pursuit of my heart He gave me someone who slowly, carefully, made his way past that fortress and helped me to trust, love, and find joy. Hubby was the first step in a new plan. One not of my own making, but so much better than I could have imagined. And it all started with the tearing down of walls and the careful exposing of my heart. For His glory, and my good.

Many are the plans in a person’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.

  • -Proverbs 19:21

Fast Forward

/ bobbiblanchard / 2 Comments

I wish I could say that after my first glimpse of faith I pursued this newfound discovery. However, I spent my first ten years building a fortress to protect a heart so soft and squishy the Pillsbury Dough Boy was jealous of it and over the next five years, with no one to encourage that planted seed of faith, I perfected this formidable outer crust. This protective mechanism, born of necessity, and honed through years of practice followed me for yet another fifteen years.

I mean, why fix something that isn’t broken, right? By society’s standards I was a success story. When I moved to a small town in the Midwest at 15, I pulled myself up by my bootstraps, studied hard, got straight A’s, got a job, a car, accepted to the college I wanted and MY plans were going perfectly! I even made a few acquaintances, which if you have any knowledge of small towns is quite a feat! I was proof of the American Dream, and proof that there was no such thing as a genetic link to addiction. But I look back on that time line and see that this girl’s heart was so hard, so well protected, that she was lonely, full of anxiety and fear of failure, so driven by it, that she not only carried an unbearable weight, but she missed out on so much joy! She really was broken and didn’t even know it!

I used to marvel at people’s testimonies when they literally had a “came to Christ moment”. I often wondered how that happens. I mean, one day they’re vacuuming cheerios out from between the couch cushions and planning what to thaw for dinner, and the next they land, completely surrendered, at the foot of the cross. I’m starting to understand that not only is God’s plan different for everyone, but because He made us all so wonderfully different, His pursuit of our hearts must look different as well.

They say hindsight is 20/20 and I now see that He not only pursued me faithfully my whole life, He mercifully did it patiently and with perfect timing. It took me fifteen years to raise my defenses, and He brought them slowly crumbling down over the next fifteen years. After all, if she didn’t know she was broken, why would she seek help? If she was sure that she could handle the load, that HER plan was working and the best for her, why seek the One whose plan was truly to prosper her? Not by society’s standards, but His? And finally, how was she to surrender and allow Him to carry that yoke with a heart so hardened and full of distrust? Praise Jesus, He knew!

Blessed is the one who always trembles before God, but whoever hardens theirheart falls into trouble.
Proverbs 28:14