Beauty for Ashes

  I have so much else to share (hopefully soon), but I came across this song that Cory Asbury wrote for his wife when she was going through post-partum depression and wanted to share it here. My heart aches when I think back to my own post-partum months - the dark thoughts during middle of the night feedings, the feelings of being misunderstood. Whether or not you're a mama, may this song minister to your heart.

Coming from an unsaved home, the messages I first received from Christianity were that there was a Person who loved me. I was mind-blown that there was a Creator who knew and loved me extravagantly. I didn’t understand the religiosity of things or even how people could be sick of church. But over a decade, the Person I first fell in love with began to fade into the background of my memory, and the clamor of my own insecurities and comparisons with others began to take over – in regard to how well-versed I was with the Bible, how well I could pray, how much I was doing for God in missions and evangelism, whether I could prophesy accurately, whether people were healed when I prayed for them, and the list goes on.  The passage that struck me recently regarding this matter was Matthew 6:22-23: “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good , your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad , your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that

“Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast."  - Matthew 9:15 “Did not our heart burn within us...while He opened the Scriptures to us?” - Luke 24:32 The IHOPKC community has done a “Global Bridegroom Fast" for the past 20 years, setting apart 3 days at the beginning of each month to seek the Lord. As IHOPU students, we were invited to join the community in these monthly fasts. There are different kinds of fasts, such as the intercessory fast in Isaiah 58. The Bridegroom fast is basically the “missing Jesus” fast based on Matthew 9:15. If the bridegroom is here, we don't fast. But if the bridegroom is gone, there is an appropriate response—fasting. We fast out of a lovesick, yearning heart. This fast is about living with the day of the Lord and day of the gladness of His heart in view.  As I joined the community in the Global Bridegroom Fa

For much of my 20’s, I aspired to a certain idea and vision of greatness. I received prophecies about my greatness and how the Lord wanted to use me to “impact nations.” I heard these kinds of words over and over, and these words were great to hear – but naturally, after many years of not making much impact, I felt like I had failed God to some measure (I believe my experience is not uncommon). I felt I needed to figure out how to achieve “big impact” in order to truly fulfill my calling and destiny in life.   The Great Commission says in Matthew 28:19-20:  "Go therefore and  make disciples of all the nations , baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit...”  When read plainly, the Great Commission does put forth this command of impacting nations. The problem is that we have interpreted the Great Commission in a way that makes it unachievable to 99% of Christians who do not have large platforms or access to thousands of people. We have interprete

A couple months ago, I was dull in heart, going through difficulties in marriage, and struggling with my prayer life. What I thought was just another Bible study I was signing up for, turned into something that would ignite a spark to know a Man I thought I knew, but didn’t really. The Bible study topic was the End Times. This subject had been my least favorite for years - the subject was daunting,  the events were hard to remember,   and I had a shaky grasp of why I needed to know about a topic that seemed so irrelevant, as I would probably never live through the end of the world.  But what lit a lightbulb in my mind about this topic was the revelation that the pinnacle of my faith - when Jesus went to the cross - was not actually the pinnacle in God's storyline. The cross is certainly the foundation of the Christian faith, but in God’s storyline, His big finale is still to come. It is when He’s planning to come back again – to reign, to restore and redeem the earth, to fulfill Hi

Note to self: Invest in sleepovers at any age. There’s nothing like late-night heart to hearts, and coffee together in a kitchen filled with morning light. Nothing like the comfort and faithfulness of a long-time friend in times of turbulence. Nothing like fellowship in suffering - where you can see the color and form of your friend’s tears beyond a blue & white text message, and hear the glorious major chords of her leaning on Jesus in her present suffering. Nothing like seeing all her various battle wounds in this season, that she was hiding behind a video screen.  This is why the church is, for lack of a better word, “essential.” 

  Dear Dad, It’s been exactly a week since you left.  That day, I was at lunch with my mom-in-law and was getting phone calls as I usually do, but I didn’t think too much of it. Maybe just your pending Medi-Cal application. Maybe a hospital bed delivery. I decided to call your nurse back while driving home just to give her a quick answer about whatever question she had. But instead of a question, she had news. It came abruptly and I couldn’t believe it at first. I kept trying to ask her for more details, how it happened and what time and if your house manager knew, but all she wanted was to know if we had set up a mortuary so she could give them a call. I told her “Rose Hills" rather abruptly and, honestly, was very irked at the whole situation. She told me you had passed naturally, and were found in the morning unconscious and cold. I hung up and wept all the way home.  The last time I saw you was three weeks ago. You had gotten displaced again from your facility, and I had onl