water – KARLA LEES @hopenHispresenz

Sunday Psalm: Cannonball

August 16, 2015August 16, 2015 Karla Lees

the invitation is clear

jump in over my head

You await
my complete surrender
as I obey Your call

Deep calls to deep

and my spirit within me
leaps for joy
as my flesh cowers in fear
while I stand
at the edge of my reason,
yet longing to trust
myself fully
into Your hands

I take a deep breath
close my eyes
and jump

beyond comprehension
the deeper I fall
the closer I feel
to You
for You become my strength
encompassing me with love
& infusing me with new life
and hope

the splash from my
cannonball into Your Presence
releases more of You
about me
refreshing all in its wake
as wave after wave
crash over me

may I never
come out of the pool
of Your affection!

#SundayPsalm

let it flow

April 30, 2015April 30, 2015 Karla Lees

Five years ago, I hit a bit of a harder patch than ever before. Injuries, illnesses & secrets revealed combined in an attempt to soak me dry to the bone.

Without God, the enemy would have succeeded in fully leaching the life out of me.

As it is, God held me even closer, spoke to me more clearly, and poured life into me, each & every day.

He keeps doing so with each new today.

The hardest part for me each year seemed to always hit around my birthday.

And quite frankly, without God, my kids & my best friends, there wouldn’t have been anything worth celebrating.

My hubby, post two major surgeries without full resolution of all his problems, got some good news this week. They may know what is causing his last plaguing symptom.

I ended up with an unexpected tax bill this month, which slapped me silly for a few hours before I could hear God whisper, “I got this. I told you breakthrough is coming.”

Hubby got one of his best tax refunds back within 6 days of filing. Which more than covered my bill, the two main needs we have needing repair, and knocking off 1/4 of our debt.

Numbers don’t mean that much to me. Relationship is more important, and always will be.

But the weight I was still carrying over our finances was quite a load, and God told me this week its His to carry, so hand it over & stop taking it back. He set me free.

So far this past 48 hours, God has been knocking my socks off with an outpour of blessing I have not been expecting, but am so grateful for.

My hubby, daughter & son all amped up and blew me away with their gifts of love, and time.

My besties rocked me again with blessings wrapped in laughter & care. They have kept me close through the rocky days, and loved me as I needed to be loved all the way. My chicks, my heart sister gifts God knew I would need in my life? Abundant blessings, each one.

My coworkers sang me happy birthday, and threw me an apple themed party (apple crumble, apple coffee cake, sour apple can’t & apple danish!).

My parents are taking us all out to dinner tonight, and have been so supportive to us all over this past long haul that tears well up from thinking about their love shown in action.

What I have learned, and celebrate today?

I have always had blessings growing around me, because of His handiwork.

He has been the giver and keeper of my life.

He is the Water I need to drink in every day, to keep life flowing in my spirit.

He is the Word I crave daily, to fill me up and direct me how to life & get to know Him more.

The garden of my life will never run dry when I choose to ask the Gardener to keep pouring Himself into it. The pruning, uprooting and straightening out that occurs under the Gardener’s hand may be painful, the pests attack may try to permanently damage, but I celebrate the Life Giver has me.

Not just my back.
He’s fully got me.

And so, even when the bad days try to gray out all the Son, I can still water my garden, with His love, grace and mercy, and hope for the new day’s blessings to come, as He has planned for me!

Every day, not just our birthdays or anniversaries are worth celebrating! So pull out your nice dishes, fave tea cup, recipe you save for a special occasion.

Jesus has you.

Worth celebrating every moment of every day!

Don’t forget to allow Him to water your garden daily. Keep your eyes on the new growth each season. Let Him bring to life a new you as you sink deeper into Him.

unadorned cracked pot

February 3, 2015February 3, 2015 Karla Lees

We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives.

2 Cor 4:7a MSG

But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.

2 Cor 4:7 NIV

But this beautiful treasure is contained in us – cracked pots made of earth and clay – so that the transcendent character of this power will be clearly seen as coming from God and not from us.

2 Cor 4:7 The Voice

This past few weeks have been ones where a few more of my cracks seems to have become wider gaps.

I feel stretched.

As the Potter’s hand works on clay, He keeps needing to wet the clay in order to reshape it.

When i stop seeking His living water, I get too dry.

And cracks form in my pot as it hardens.

The good news?

God can soften hard pots.

But it leaves cracks behind.

I heard a story about a young gal who had to carry water in a cracked pot back & forth, day in and day out. By the time she got home there wasn’t the amount of water she started out with.

Long story short, beautiful flowers appeared on the side of the road where the water had been dripping, day after day.

God never wastes, not one single drop, from our cracks.

I have often wondered if I didn’t have the flaws & foibles I had if God would use me as much….because i suspect i wouldn’t feel the need for Him as acutely as I do throughout my days.

Today, I felt the cracks, after a few days of God soaking & spinning & pressing & smoothing.

I know how much I need Him, the more He sets me free & guides me.

To Him, I am chosen.
To the world, I appear a pudgy married mom of two young adults, with curly red hair & glasses, with a zany sense of humour, who loves words, tea and right now in this cold spell, her heating pad. 🙂

An unadorned cracked pot.

Yet God chooses to use me…

I know that when I have met someone who radiates Jesus, I don’t pay as close attention to their cracks or flaws….I see Jesus pouring out through them.

That’s my heart’s desire.

To be cracked in all the right places for Jesus to shine through me, so although I am humble clay, the Almighty can use me for His glory.

The Good News Message for us all?

God can use all of us, despite our cracks, chips & holes.

It’s about our availability, our holding out our hands to be filled, not about our capability.

It’s about His ability, to use the cracked, broken & lowly to shoe the world just how loving, graceful, kind, mighty & powerful He really is!

I’m a cracked pot, how about you?

dry & weary land

June 8, 2014June 8, 2014 Karla Lees

There are places within that are parched, dry, weary.

Broken places I have buried for too long.

Hopes & dreams I wait for.

Wounds that have been partly healed, a crack still open to keep the infection brewing.

There is no 100% cure without God.
None.

You see, the layers within cannot be reached to our very depths by anything we can do or try.

Simply put, we don’t have the right tools without God’s leading us through the layers.

Only He can peel back our defenses to let the truth come to light.

Once the negative roots get exposed, they are uprooted to stop their poisonous growth.

The positive roots are properly planted to burrow deep as originally intended without any more lies choking the life out of them, or the excess layers of soil become so soaked the water can finally spur the roots on to grow.

Dry and weary can mean we need to lay our stuff down, and ask God to release His living water to soak us through and through.

It’s waiting, taking a breather from what’s going on around you, or within your swirling emotions, for God to meet you.

It is stopping the doing, to being in His presence, that leads us to that water.

If you are parched, come to the One who can satisfy you within.

Hope will blossom again, as you rest in His love. The refreshment of knowing you are deeply cared for.

It’s time to get thirsty again.

God is waiting to do all the work, He just needs you to come.

you make me brave when feet may fail

April 22, 2014April 22, 2014 Karla Lees

I stand before You now
The greatness of Your renown
I have heard of the majesty and wonder of You
King of Heaven in humility, I bow

As Your love in wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us, You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in

I have heard You call my name
I have heard the song of love that You sing
So, I will let You draw me beyond the shore Into Your grace, Your grace

As Your love
In wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in

You make me brave You make me brave You called me beyond the shore Into the waves
You make me brave You make me brave No fear can hinder now The love that made a way

You make me brave You make me brave You called me beyond the shore Into the waves
You make me brave You make me brave No fear can hinder now The promises You’ve made

As Your love In wave after wave
Crashes over me, crashes over me
For You are for us You are not against us Champion of Heaven
You’ve made a way For all to enter in
– You Make Me Brave, Bethel Music

You call me out upon the waters
The great unknown where feet may fail
And there I find You in the mystery
In oceans deep My faith will stand

And I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

Your grace abounds in deepest waters
Your sovereign hand Will be my guide
Where feet may fail and fear surrounds me
You’ve never failed and You won’t start now

So I will call upon Your name
And keep my eyes above the waves
When oceans rise
My soul will rest in Your embrace
For I am Yours and You are mine

[6x]
Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders
Let me walk upon the waters Wherever You would call me
Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander
And my faith will be made stronger In the presence of my Savior

I will call upon Your name
Keep my eyes above the waves
My soul will rest in Your embrace
for I am Yours and You are mine
–Oceans (Where Feet May Fail), Hillsong United

What keeps me brave?

Wrong question.

Who keeps me brave?

It is certainly not an inner characteristic I would refer to myself as. In fact, before becoming a follower of Christ, I was a mouthy sarcastic on the offense as my defense coz i was hurting so on the inside teen. One who thought nothing of using words as a weapon to try and avoid getting hurt.

The hurting becoming the one hurting others.

The gift being used against those it was intended to bless.

Unless I was singing, or writing for an assignment, my words were not my best work.

When God found me, I was desperately afraid, deeply wounded in my heart & soul, and headed for depression. My outer actions reflected my inner turmoil. Erratic, reactive, quickly combustible, highly regrettable.

I was so not what you would call brave.

God entered my life, and everything changed.

I had to walk out onto the deep waters, keeping my eyes fixed on Him, in order for Him to reach me to be brave.

I needed many words of love, comfort, healing and wholeness spoken over me, and many words of regret, sin, bad memories, strongholds and lies released from within, cleansed in His waters.

The only way I could face all the pain of what had been was to allow the One who was, is and is to come to make me brave.

I kept calling out to Him, and He kept reaching out for me. Keeping my head above the waters, allowing me periods of rest to ease the strain of becoming whole, until the next time He called me to step out, leave more of the old behind me, and press on through the storm towards the new He has prepared for me.

These past six months have been especially healing for me. I felt stirred to begin to write again. In a way I hadn’t felt since high school writing class.

Deep calling to deep.

God made me brave to start the first day. And has keep me brave each day since as my story, His Story through me, is being laid out, word after word, grain of sand after another.

The call to express in word.

The call to express in song is now being fanned into flames again, brighter than the call to write.
Which, quite frankly, scared me more than a little.

But i know that as I follow where He is calling, He will again make me brave enough for each day as it dawns.

For He makes the way for me.
He calms the storms with His presence.
He commands the waves.
He calls me to come.
And makes me brave enough to step out into the great unknown.
Leading me to a greater dependence on His strength, equipping and presence, in His power.

My feet may fail,
But God will catch me.
I am in His grip forever.
And that makes me brave.

accepting the blues

April 17, 2014April 17, 2014 Karla Lees

The blues are not always a bad thing, you know.

Many of my favorite things that help me fight off the blues are, in fact, blue.

Hydrangeas, bluebells….I love seeing the shades of blue that are found in a garden.

(pic from: http://thecountrydiaryofasouthernlady.blogspot.ca/2010/06/rhapsody-in-blue.html

Blue jeans. Oh, how I love to wear my jeans. Its like being at home wherever you go.

Waves. The Ocean. Water, as far as the eye can see.

Majestic in its power, graceful in defeat until it crashes against the shore again, and again.

(image from: http://www.whirlwindodyssey.org)

Rivers, brooks, streams. Flowing, trickling, still.

(Image from : http://www.ecsahlberg.com/River.html)

My new Old Navy navy & white scarf. It perks me up, makes me feel fresh & youthful.

My eyes. They are a reminder that God likes the shade of blue so much, He shared it with me!

And this.

God collects all of my tears.

Water runs clear until it pools together, and then it reveals its shades of blue.

The fact God knows each and every circumstance that leaves me fighting the blues,

and treasures the tears I cry when I am blue for whatever reason…. reminds me that:

I am never alone.

God is never taken by surprise.

The blues may last for a night, or a season,

but joy comes, oh how it comes, in the morning,

with a new sense of His presence being more than enough

and the underlying hope that

when we finally meet face to face,

I will never be blue again.