Dedicating My Heart

As December days march speedily along with the hustle and bustle of the season, my soul finds stillness in the memory of nine glowing candles that graced my dining table.  One white candle stood tall in a golden candlestick, designating the shamash or servant candle in my nontraditional menorah, while eight smaller lights were lit to represent the eight days of Hanukkah.  Also known as the Festival of Lights, this is a celebration of  the Light of the World who told his disciples, "You are the light of the world."  Never familiar to me until the last few years, this is a holiday that is becoming more and more precious to my heart.  Its prophetic fulfillment and foreshadows, and its spiritual truths run deep.
  
 Because this holiday is so new to me, I began last year to create a few decorations that would be meaningful.  I figured that denim would be a perfect medium to use, since I had lots of old jeans to recycle and the color would be just perfect.  As denim has come to have a lot of symbolism for me, that just adds depth to the mix.

"Hanukkah" is no longer a foreign word to me.  I now know that Hanukkah means "dedication", thus the day is also referred to as the Feast of Dedication.  The holiday is a remembrance of the courageous Jews who stood firm with God's help against idolatry in the face of persecution and rededicated God's Holy Temple in 165 BC after it had been defiled.  Nearly 200 years later, we see the Messiah in that very same temple at Hanukkah.  In John 10:22,23 we read, "Then came the Festival of Dedication (Hanukkah) at Jerusalem.  It was winter, and Jesus was in the temple courts walking in Solomon's Colonnade."  If Hanukkah was important to Yeshua, then that makes it important to me.

Make me whiter than snow!

Although the Temple has been destroyed, we must still continue to fight against the idolatry that is so pervasive in this world in which we live.  Individually and corporately we have the high calling to be holy temples for the LORD to live within.  Are we willing to be set apart and holy?  Will we let our lights shine for him?  If this is to be the case, we must continually dedicate our hearts to the LORD.

 What will we look like if we shine for him?  We will look like our Master!  We will exhibit fruit that comes from loving God and our neighbor.  I noticed that just as there are nine candles on the menorah, the Bible lists nine Fruit of the Spirit.  These qualities are the reflection of what the light of God will look like if it dwells in us.   

 This is what I want to look like:

Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, Self-Control

   

This beautiful song expresses my heart's desire:

To understand new meanings about the ancient festival of Hanukkah in light of Messiah 
and about how it is relevant and important for all believers: 
http://elshaddaiministries.us/MiscPDF/light-in-the-darkness_ebook.pdf

My Simple Sukkah

 This year, for the very first time, I set up a simple sukkah and celebrated Sukkot.   "What is a sukkah?" you might ask, and "What is Sukkot?"   Well, "sukkah" in Hebrew means "booth"  and "Sukkot" is the Feast of Booths, but perhaps it is better known to many as the Feast of Tabernacles as written about in Leviticus 23:39-43.  This appointed time of the Lord was a joyous celebration that occurred in Israel after the summer harvest, and for that reason it also was known as the Feast of Ingathering.

Sukkot was one of three pilgrimage feasts in which the Israelites were required to journey to Jerusalem.  I think of it as a community camping trip!  At just the time when the agricultural communities were feeling satisfied and secure with having gathered the crops into their storehouses, God sent his people away from their creature comforts of home and out into a primitive camping experience with family and friends. How would you like to have three required vacations each year.....time to get away, re-connect, re-group and reassess your priorities?

Sukkot was a time for the Israelites to remember.  It was a time to recall their ancestors' nomadic years of wandering around the wilderness, living in tents, while longing for a more permanent home.....even as the God of heaven and earth had made his home in the midst of them!  Sukkot celebrates that the Lord was very close and very real to his people through his presence and power and provision.

I like to look at this pilgrimage feast from God's perspective.  I think it's like God was saying to his beloved, "Come away with me.  Look at me.  Look deeply into my eyes and see my love for you!  Don't look at the mere gifts that I have given to you and be satisfied, but see me, the one who provided them for you."  God was teaching his chosen people how to relate to him, how to find their home in him, how to be satisfied in a way that would supersede earthly cares and worries.....how to love him.

What an affectionate lover our God is!  He still longs for our undivided hearts with a passionate and healthy jealousy.  I invite you to question your heart with me as I ask myself, "Am I running into his arms.....to be with him, or am I feeling distant, even running away, distracted, uninterested, and overcome with the concerns of this world?  Am I contentedly sitting at his feet knowing that he is the 'one thing', or am I just too busy, busy, busy, thinking, 'I'll get around to spending time with my love later?'"  Sukkot is a time that God invites his people to spend intimate time with him under heavenly covering.

I have found the facts of this feast to be fascinating and very prophetic.  It is the final and seventh feast of year that is celebrated in the seventh month on the Hebrew calendar.  It lasts for seven days, with an eighth day following, and the various sacrifices that God directed during the seven days each add up to multiples of seven!  I am no detective, but it is obvious to me that our God is trying to tell us something here through the repetition of the number seven. 

I have learned that the number seven in the Bible is used to symbolize perfection and completion.  Used in conjunction with the Feast of Sukkot, we must realize that without spelling it out in words, our God is giving us clues as to the importance of this feast.  Galatians 4:4 speaks about the perfect timing of Messiah's birth, "But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son".  John 1:14 tells us, "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us."  In the literal Greek, the word "dwelt" means "tabernacled".  Taken together we see that in God's perfect timing, he sent his Son, Jesus ("Yeshua" meaning "salvation" in Hebrew) to live among us.  It fits perfectly into prophecy that Yeshua would have been born in a sukkah at the start of Sukkot and then was circumcised on the eighth day.  And our Savior also celebrated Sukkot!

I enjoyed a number of lovely meals under the sukkah with friends who appreciated the ambiance of the canopy, but one of the meals I served was to my sons on a breezy, cool evening.  After many complaints about the weather and urges to go inside where it was warm, a mutiny ensued.  Reluctantly I followed, but with the promise of conversation to follow.  I shared how the situation had proved how much we as humans crave comfort and security.  And yet, at times, as during Sukkot, the LORD calls us from our comfort in order to draw us closer to himself. 

This life is like living in a sukkah.  It's not a place of permanence or of true rest and lasting comfort.  We are aliens and strangers living in a strange land.  God alone is our real comfort.  He is our true security.  Where he is.....that is our true home.  

He is our shelter!  

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High
    will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,
    my God, in whom I trust.”

Psalm 91: 1,2

Rags To Riches

Denim.....gotta say again how much I like it.....so comfortable, so versatile, so full of character and variety, and so practical.  And who doesn't appreciate a pair of good-fitting jeans?  But when the jeans wear out and they're a bit too rugged to pass on, with stains or rips in the wrong places, I like to collect and recycle them..... as I have done with this fringy throw quilt.

Up-cycling junky jeans reminds me of the way that God through Messiah has reached down to save and transform me.  Like old jeans that could have been tossed into the garbage bin, the Creator found a way to redeem and rescue his beloved, fallen people, turning them from the eternal punishment that their sins deserved, to the new life that he offers through his spirit.  Like parables, my denim projects tell stories with heavenly meanings.

Denim blues are so mesmerizing to me.  Call me crazy, I don't care, but I feel like my eyes get sucked in and enraptured by the beauty of this cool and soothing color.  I especially love the brightness of the old, worn, faded squares because of how beautifully their highlights contrast with the richer, sturdier, darker blues.....put that concept into a parable, and tell me if it doesn't sound like an encouraging thought!  

I discovered something amazing about the color blue as I was working on my quilt.  Blue is the color of royalty.  God used a blue cloth as the final covering over the Ark of the Covenant (Numbers 4:6) to designate his authority as the ark led the children of Israel through the wilderness.  All the other various articles from the Tabernacle that followed in procession were covered on the outside with animal skins, but the ark of God stood apart.....covered in blue!  The Ark of the Testimony was the earthly footstool of God Almighty.  It represented the presence of the King of Kings among his people. So maybe I'm not so crazy after all!  God chose blue to represent his presence.....and I love it!

Known as a rag quilt or a fringe quilt, this recently finished project had originally attracted me because of the beautifully textured fringy edges.  It offered one more unique way to use the denim fabric that I had collected.  One side has fringes, and on that side I included seams on some of the squares for more interest and texture. The other side of the quilt is smooth.

Another fascinating fact I learned while working on my fringe quilt, was that the men of Israel were commanded to wear fringes or tassels on the corners of their garments (Numbers 15:38,39).  These, they were commanded to attach with a blue thread.  The blue thread linked the Israelites to the King of Kings.  The color of divine royalty visually reminded them that God had linked them to himself.....giving them the privilege and the responsibility of representing the Lord of Lords.  The fringes helped them to remember and to obey all the Lord's commandments. 

Zechariah 8:23 prophesies about a day in which ten men (the number of leaders that quantifies a formal congregation), will grab the corner of the garment of a Jew saying, "Let's go with you for we have heard that God is with you."  This is speaking of a time in which Gentile believers attach themselves to the Messiah (a Jew),  and take hold of the commandments by taking hold of him.  When we love what God loves and hate what he hates, when we keep the Lord's commandments, it's like we are grabbing onto the fringes and attaching ourselves to our Jewish Messiah. 

In the construction of the quilt, each square was double layered, to create a front and a back for the quilt.  To hold the layers together, I sewed X's from corner to corner on each square.  Even that detail took on meaning for me as I continued to study and learn about the Hebrew alphabet.  In the Paleo-Hebrew alephbet , the last letter, tav, had as its letter picture, an X or a cross - a symbol or sign of "covenant".   Combined with the first letter, the aleph, meaning "strength", aleph-tav literally means, "strength of the covenant".  This is what Yeshua was actually declaring about himself when we read, "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last."  

On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, I sat on the patio under my just-finished quilt, reflecting on my need for a Savor, knowing that as Isaiah 64:6 puts it, "all our righteousness are as filthy rags" to God.  I thanked my Savior, Yeshua, for covering my sins with his precious blood, for fulfilling all of the laws' demands and for being the strength of the covenant......for me.  I have found my covering.....under the wings of Yeshua, my Kinsman-Redeemer, in whom I take refuge.  Through him, my stains have been washed away, and I can stand before the throne as an unblemished, pure and holy bride, dressed in a radiant robe of righteousness.  Thanks be to God for the eternal riches that he has so graciously bestowed upon me!

  

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;
Naked, come to Thee for dress;
Helpless look to Thee for grace;
Foul, I to the fountain fly;
Wash me, Savior, or I die.

Interested in a tutorial?  For the one that I followed, you can look here:  http://www.thiscrazyblessedlife.com/2011/08/housewife-in-town-denim-rag-quilt.html

Hmmm.....maybe I'll be able to use the lint for another project!

Remembering My Baptism

Amazing Grace 

Amazing grace how sweet the sound - that saved a wretch like me!  

I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.  - John Newton 1779

It was an event much anticipated to which I had given many a thought.....so what an emotional   experience it was for me a year ago when I was baptized.  I was so happy, I cried.  Full of joy, full of sorrow, I knew that I had been given a gift that I did not deserve.  Although I had been baptized as a baby, I wanted to experience the immersion of repentance.  This time around, in knowledge and remorse of my sin against God, with the intention of committing my life to follow Yeshua the Messiah, I wanted to dip under the water and symbolically let my sin sink to the bottom of the lake.  I wanted to store this experience in my memory bank as a beautiful picture of God's amazing grace.....to me. 

Now a year later, many from our congregation gathered again by the water, in a spirit of repentance.  Following the first-time, individual immersions, we went down into the water together - a physical reminder of having had our sins washed away by the blood of Yeshua, our Salvation.  In this way, we remembered his death and resurrection......for us.

 I love that our LORD directs his children to perform outward expressions of spiritual realities.  He is such a good teacher, and he knows the way that we learn and remember.  Like little children, we learn best by using all our senses.  Our senses can trigger memories, and remind us of lessons learned.  In immersion we may smell the salty breeze, see the water surrounding us, feel it's coolness that perhaps even takes our breath away, hear the sound of the splashing as we submerge and pop up again, and we may even taste a little saltiness in our mouth.  We come up soaking wet - different looking than before we went down.  The outward change reminds us of an inward change.

On the cross of sacrifice, our Savior took upon himself the sin-debt that no man could pay.  With his own blood, he paid the price so that you and I could be set free from the punishment we deserve.    Yeshua - our "Salvation" went down.....into death.....and on the third day, he arose.....to Life.  Like him, in baptism, we go down.....into the waters representing death, and we come up.....to breathe the newness of life.   Immersion represents New Life, or being "born-again".  It represents that the LORD has been at work, internally re-creating our hearts.  Immersion also marks the new beginning of a life dedicated to following the One who lovingly gave it all.....for you and for me. 

Hallelujah, grace like rain falls down on me
Hallelujah, all my stains are washed away, washed away

  

The collage, Amazing Grace, was a gift to Pastor Henry Lenkeek.  

His favorite song.....Amazing Grace.....and his wife's name.....Grace.....how sweet!  

It was created on canvas with photocopies from the Psalter Hymnal, layers of tissue paper, 

and a bit of paint.

Hiding His Word in My Heart

Sanctuary

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit inside you;  I will take the stony heart out of  your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.  I will put my Spirit inside of you and cause  you to live by my laws, respect my rulings and obey them."  Ezekiel 36:26,27

I'm embarking on a new adventure of sorts, something unlike anything I've ever challenged myself to do before.  I'm taking a Torah tour.  Yes, for the next year, I will be traversing through the Torah from Genesis to Deuteronomy, not only reading through it but copying it in my own hand!  My goal is to fill one side of a notebook page per day, which takes me about twenty minutes.  That sounds like a do-able goal, but at this rate I'm sure this journey will take about a-year-and-a-half to complete.....which is perfectly ok.

I was inspired by a very godly mentor, my friend Marianne, who began this Messianic journey many years ago.  She, like I, was so excited to learn and study the parts of the Bible that are often dismissed as irrelevant.  The translation that I will be copying from is the Complete Jewish Bible.  I like that it uses Hebrew names for the books of the Bible and the biblical characters and places.  To me it accentuates the cultural context in which the Bible was written.  So another thing I will be learning as I copy, will be Hebrew words and spellings.

Today, after writing out my page of scripture in a notebook, I had an idea which, I believe, is what I'm going to do with my copied pages.....I will make my very own, hand-written Torah scroll!  I recently discovered that each king of Israel was instructed by God to write out his very own handwritten copy of the Torah scroll!  It was something that he was to keep close and read every day, so that he would learn to revere, obey and rule according to God's ways.  (Deuteronomy 17:18-20)


Over this past year I have begun to learn that the Torah is truly the foundation of the entire Bible.  It is a story of origins explaining the origin of sin, the creation of the world, etc.; it is a training manual for godly living; and it is a covenant and a document, like unto a marriage contract, between God and Israel.  Torah reveals sin, reveals the wrath of God, and acts as a teacher to lead us to Messiah.

My Heart's Treasure

Torah, which some translate as "law",  is really God's instruction book on how to live with each other and how to approach God.  Torah means "teaching".  What makes these first five books of the Bible so infinitely valuable is that Moses was the only author of the Bible with whom God talked face to face when giving out his Word.  The enduring quality of stone on which God, by his own finger wrote out the Ten Commandments, is yet another indication of the permanence of God's Word. 

Although not every part of the Torah is applicable in our current time and place, the Torah is good for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17).  I've always especially loved Psalm 19 in which David, under the influence of the Holy Spirit, describes God's Torah as perfect, trustworthy, right, radiant, pure, sure, righteous, precious, sweet and more.  Another song of Torah, Psalm 119, is the longest continuous poem in the Bible, written by David to express his love for God's teachings.  The painting to the left portrays, among many things, that God's commandments are My Heart's Treasure and the way of Life!

The thing so fascinating about the Old Testament, is that it is the New Testament concealed, and likewise, the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed.  So even though I will be focusing on these ancient books of Moses, I will be learning much about the very words which Christ came to fulfill (Matthew 5:17-20).  Jesus, Yeshua, is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), therefore he is the living Torah! 

Truth be told, I'm a little apprehensive about this endeavor.  It's quite overwhelming to see those 241 pages of words which I've committed to write out for six days each week.  At the most, this endeavor will cost me time and about ten dollars, since I estimate that I will need about eight notebooks and a couple of wooden dowels to complete my task......but I believe I will be investing in something that money can't buy.  Through reading, writing, and speaking the words of scripture quietly as I copy and hear my own voice, I will be investing all five of my senses into hiding God's Word in my heart.....and that will be invaluable!

"Your word is a lamp for my foot and a light on my path."  Psalms 119:105

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home

Home Sweet Home hangs above my bed as a representation of my family; my husband, myself and our three sons.  It's idyllic portrait to be sure; loving, sweet and peace-filled, representing my dreams to be a wonderful wife and mother bird.  But real life is quite a bit more messy.  Real life is woven with ups, downs, joys, conflicts, sweet memories and imperfections.

In real life, there comes a time when the birdies leave the nest, when all that's left inside are memories and empty rooms.....an empty nest.  We're not in that stage yet, but we're getting a taste of it.  It's a good thing, to be sure, for birdies to grow, and try their wings, and fly, but it's a hard thing too.

For the ones leaving home and the ones being left, saying "good-bye" is painful.  We realize that the time we had together was short - it just flew by.  We may experience regret for what we did or didn't do.  Reality strikes, and we realize it wasn't meant to be that we all stay nestled together forever.  Our babies were made to be able to fly.....away.

Home Sweet Home also represents something much deeper, something much more profound, something akin to a parable.  Home Sweet Home is not just limited to a  place.  It's not just a family unit.  It's not just a short little span of time that we have together.

Home Sweet Home is a state of being.....loved.  It's knowing that no matter where we go, who we're with, no matter what we do or don't do, we will never find ourselves forgotten, abandoned or alone.....because we have a Home with our Father who is always with us.  He is our Sweet Home.

Long ago, the LORD gave His people a golden symbol of His holy presence.  He wanted His beloved ones to know that they would always be with Him;  protected, loved and.....at Home.....if they remained under His wings.  The Ark of the Covenant testified .....The LORD was their Sweet Home.

Beneath the slogan and painting above my bed, the Golden Rectangle Quilt covers me with silent reminders of  God's covenant promises.   These visuals remind me that God's presence is always near no matter where we go, because He has made His Home in the hearts of those who love and trust Him.  Our hearts are His home.

When my birdies venture off and leave the nest, I have the assurance that wherever they fly, Abba Father is always near, and under His wings they will find......Home Sweet Home!  In this promise, I will rest. 

   He will cover you with His feathers, 

and under his wings you will find refuge.

Psalm 91:4

Celebrate the Light!

Two recycled candle holders newly adorn my dining room table.  I admit, they're kind of big and awkward, but that's OK, they have a story to tell.  These are souvenirs from my first Passover Seder.

Because the Seder I attended was such a memorable occasion for me, I decided to take home the empty Manischewitz wine bottle from my table, as a souvenir.  The sweet tasting wine brought back memories to me of when my church used to serve this brand of wine for communion.  I liked the connection it signified to me between what I had always known and what I was learning.  A friend encouraged to take home two bottles and use them for candle holders, so without any qualms, I plucked a second bottle from the trash.

Hmmm.....what to do?  As usual, I pondered over ideas for a while before deciding how to decorate the bottles that I would use as candle holders.  I decided to cover them with the names of God, both in English and Hebrew.  On the body of the bottles, I decoupaged tissue paper and pictures representing some of the names of Christ.  The images came from the Adornaments that my boys had learned from each year, when we had celebrated Christ at Christmas.  

The bottles also display the beginning and ending letters of the Greek and the Hebrew alphabets.  This is to depict what Jesus, Yeshua, says about himself in Revelation 22:13,  "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End."  

In the Paleo-Hebrew alephbet , the first letter, the aleph, meant "strength" - depicted by the symbol an ox head. The last letter of the alephbet, tav, had as its letter picture, an X or a cross - a symbol or sign of "covenant". Consequently, aleph-tav literally means, "strength of the covenant".  So Yeshua is declaring here, "I am the strength of the covenant!"  The implications of this statement go deep, and this understanding has been life-changing for me.

Decorating each candle ring, is a Star of David.  With six points, it symbolizes God's rule over the universe in all six directions: north, south, east, west, up and down.  It speaks to the hope that we find when we place our trust in the LORD.  I also see it as representational of the promised, anointed, King of Righteousness, the Son of David.

Just as the names of God shed light on His character, so  shall these candles shed light on our table as we dine and fellowship together.  I pray that they will spark many a conversation about our LORD.  He is worthy of our conversation, our wonder, our praise and worship!

The Light of the World has come.....in the form of Yeshua the Messiah!

Let's celebrate Him!