This morning I slipped out of bed before my alarm went off so that I wouldn’t awaken Keith. I’d slept much later than usual because I’d had a full weekend of taping sessions at Life Today for Wednesdays in the Word. Our church also has an 11:00 AM worship service slot which is a glorious grace for people who work many Friday nights and Saturdays and need a little sabbath in the worst way. I had my prayer time and several cups of thick dark coffee in the regular spot where Jesus and I meet on mornings when no one is up in my house but me. If Keith is awake, I move to my library to finish out but, if he’s sound asleep, I stick a little closer to the coffee pot. It saves considerable pacing.
Half an hour in, I glanced at the clock and knew I’d better get moving toward the shower or we weren’t going to get there in time to fellowship at all before the service started. Something is always missing in my Sunday when that happens. I don’t go to church for the service alone unless I’m in too much distress to want to talk to anybody. In that case, I might go in late and leave early, as much as I hate to admit it. But far more normally, second to participating in worship and the Word, I go with full intention to be with a family of believers equally frail and human but also pursuing a life of faith. I give and get hugs. I get and give words of encouragement. I pray for people and people pray for me. Sometimes my own daughter will lean over in the part of our service dedicated to prayer and whisper intercession in my ear.
This holy give and take. A community cannot exist without communing. Church has never just been limited to a service for me. Nor has it been limited to Sundays.
But back to this morning. I didn’t want to be late so I stacked up the Bible I use for my morning devotionals, my journal, and my iPad and headed into my library to set them back on my desk. As I put them down, I hesitated for a moment before turning toward my bedroom. I knew I still had something on my heart that I had not brought to the Lord. When I finish my prayer time, the goal for me is that my heart would be poured out before Jesus in praises, confessions, intercessions, and concerns and then filled back up by Him with His own Holy Spirit.
Trust in Him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before Him. God is a refuge for us. Psalm 62:8
Be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18
I pour out, He pours in.
That’s our deal.
Just minutes before in the kitchen with my Bible open, I’d talked around the thing that was on my heart but I’d not voiced it the way I really felt it. I had questions about it that I hadn’t exactly asked. Maybe I hadn’t asked them because I’d not really expected an answer. Or maybe I hadn’t asked them because I was uncomfortable being that raw. By raw I don’t just mean honest. Good grief, I hope to heaven that I approach God in prayer with honesty this many years into our relationship after the places we’ve been together. I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that, if He hadn’t insisted that I learn to be honest with Him about my true estate, I’d probably be dead by now.
I’m pausing to stare at that statement to see if it really rings true in my spirit.
Yeah. I think my body would be cold and in the ground by now. I was headed for a full fledged implosion.
To me, raw doesn’t just mean honest. It means not having to think carefully about how I’m going to word it. Not having to frame it in godly terms. After all, I want to be godly. God help me, I want to be godly. But it’s hard to be godly with a lot of junk stored up in your heart.
Raw means, “This is the deal right here. This is how I feel. And why is it that…? What on earth is…?”
Raw means going ahead and putting out there how I really feel about something down deep, even if it sounds selfish or small.
Even if it makes me sound pathetic. He can see my heart anyway. And sometimes it is pathetic.
I glanced over at the gorgeous kneeling bench the prayer team at Tuesday night Bible study had given me and I walked over to it and knelt down on it.
Right there I pulled out that pine cone that was still down there pricking and sticking and crowding my heart and set it out before God, all jagged and bloody on the edges. Right there I brought my questions.
August temperatures in Houston are oppressively warm and the air is damp and wet even in the morning. Keith Moore likes his house cold and, if he didn’t, I would. The combination of competing temperatures in a humid climate means that every window this time of year is thickly layered in condensation until the sun comes up and burns it off. You have to go outside around here if you want an unhindered view of the dawn.
As I knelt on that bench, everything was a fog out that window especially with my forehead pressed to the glass. But, as I prayed for just those few moments, my eyes adjusted to one slender streak left by a heavy drop. Just one tear of clarity.
And somehow, it was enough. At least for today.
I didn’t get up off that bench with clear answers to my questions but I got up with something else. I rose from my knees with the sense in my heart that I’d been heard. That the questions were not inappropriate. That the matter was not irrelevant. And that, even if it communicated my flawed and small self, what better place to have exposed it?
Then I went to church and worshiped freely because all that had troubled my heart was out on the table before God and I was hiding nothing from Him. I fought tears for most of the service because I felt close to Him and not because I’d been godly but because I’d just gotten to be raw. And it had been okay.
I am struggling with some things and He knows it and not just from reading my mind but from hearing my mouth. Let’s just go ahead and admit it. There is relief in that.
I don’t know why some things are the way they are. It doesn’t change them to admit my bewilderment but it clears the air somehow.
Hostility grows where things are left simmering and unsaid. What I needed to say to Jesus this morning wasn’t about Him but its only safe place was with Him.
Go ahead, Sister. Trust Him with that thing. Go find a place to kneel and say it. Say it in humility but say it with complete honestly.
And I pray that, though the window’s still wet and blurred by the heat, you will open your eyes and there it will be.
One slender streak of clarity.
All I can say is…..I needed this!!!!
Yes. Message received. Thank you so much for this.
Thank you beautiful sister….what a joy and a delight you are!! Your encouraging words have touched my soul…I hope and pray we will meet one day soon….you have a special place in my heart♡♡♡♡♡…hugs!! Donna
Praise God, we can be real and raw and true with Him. No need for masks or re-wording to sugarcoat anything. May He continue to bless and guide you, and may all His children be real and raw, genuinely present before Him today. Your sister in Christ, Jennifer
Pondering…. and to be honest, I am frightened to find out the severity of my dishonesty before Him.
Beautiful words, Beth. Sometimes I hesitate to bother God with my problems so instead I keep them to myself. But I’ve finally realized that He loves me– every bit of me—and wants me to bring all my concerns to Him–my Father. My name is in His palm . He cares. I can be bold and honest and raw. Because He loves me . Thank you for your insight and for sharing this precious truth with us.
Thank you!! Thank you for also being raw with us!!
My family and I attended your church last summer during our short 3 mos. in Houston. I enjoyed so much when I would see you there and knew you’d slipped in. Oh how I wanted to just hug your neck sometimes but wanted you to have a ‘normal’ Sunday.
Praying for you, Beth!
Thank you, Beth.
Thank you, Beth! I SO needed this today! I know God will bless you for being so transparent.
Thank you for sharing you put it so well into words. That is how I feel and what I have to do. What a great God we serve. Deut. 10:17
I have had you on my mind lately because I am finishing up “Children of the Day” this week.
But I have also had four or five weeks of a scattered mind. My health has not been the best and I’ve been thinking of the eternal a lot lately. I’m not scared nor am I concerned for my place in eternity but I have been praying a lot for clarity for the here and now. I thank you for this post and am getting some clarity of mind. My body is healing nicely but so is my
soul. God is so good and so faithful. I love you dearly, my sweet Beth and continue to pray for you and yours across the fields!
Dear Beth,
As I dropped off to sleep last night after a totally exhausting weekend I still thought of you after I had posted earlier in the eve. Something occured to me to write you and sometimes you are never sure if it is the prompting of the Lord or just a gut feeling but usually if I feel the urge to do something (not physical mind you!) I act on it anyway so if this does not pertain to you then just disregard as something I wrote on a whim.
Beth, I am going to write this to challenge you abit not to admonish or reprimand or scold but something for you to think about……
Often in our Christian walk we go by feelings, emotions, experiences. If things plateau out and God doesn’t WOW us for awhile than we either feel like we have lost some of our first love for Him or are not as tuned to Him as we need to be or maybe He has grown distant because of some other reason.
Sometimes I feel very emotional in church as I did yesterday and the tears are flowing out of my own love for how He has moved in our lives lately.
But, there are plenty of times I do not feel His presence in my life as profoundly. Does that mean I am less in tuned with Him or that possibly He is distant becuase of something I have done? No, it is just my human emotion.
The trouble with needing a “high” all the time is that eventually it takes more and more of a jolt to give us this same high! If we expect to see Him move in a WOW manner all the time we are gona be disappointed. You bet there are times of great giddiness and a real high when something big has happened but plenty of times it is the quiet confidence that He does indeed love me and I do not have to look for a high everytime I meet with Him to know He loves me and is working in my life.
We tend to pin too much of our christian walk on wow experiences and emotional highs but life with Jesus is about quiet confidence. We can not live on mountain top experiences all the time eventually we need to come down to real every day life the rubber meets the road kind of exisitance.
Have you felt lately like the highs are just not quite like they ought to be? Is that some of the problem? I am not sure I am not a great “reader between the lines” kind of person but all of us have to be very careful not to expect a Christmas morning kind of experience with Jesus every day it is just not gona happen and it is not even helathy for us to expect that all the time.
So, blessings on your Mon and I need to warm my coffee. Our windows in Dakota Land are steamy as well today but they will burn off soon enough!!
Love Ya!
Betty M
That’s a good word, Betty! Thank you!
Betty,
This “Beth” needed to hear that as well.
Thanks!
Quiet confidence. Thank you Betty. Your words along with Beth’s have given me so much to help me!!!! Thanks for the unexpected mentoring!
Your life and blog and messages and ministry reflect this passage of TRUTH: You have helped us FOLLOW THE MASTER JESUS!!! 1 Thessalonians 1:3 (YOU HAVE SHOWN Convictions of Steel). I think I can say this to you for many:
2-5 “Every time we think of you, WE THANK GOD FOR YOU. Day and night you’re in our prayers as we call to mind your work of faith, your labor of love, and your patience of hope IN FOLLOWING OUR MASTER JESUS CHRIST, before God our Father. It is clear to us, friends, that God not only loves you very much but also has put his hand on you for something special.” (Changed for context: When the Message YOU preached came to US, it wasn’t just words. Something happened in US ALL…. The Holy Spirit put steel in OUR convictions.) GOD’s SPIRIT is at work!!!!
Thank you BETH and LPM!!!
We are following your lead and modeling….and the MASTER:
1 Thessalonians 1:6-10The Message (MSG)
5-6 You paid careful attention to the way we lived among you, and determined to live that way yourselves. In imitating us, you imitated the Master. Although great trouble accompanied the Word, you were able to take great joy from the Holy Spirit!—taking the trouble with the joy, the joy with the trouble.
7-10 Do you know that all over the provinces of both Macedonia and Achaia believers look up to you? The word has gotten around. Your lives are echoing the Master’s Word, not only in the provinces but all over the place. The news of your faith in God is out. We don’t even have to say anything anymore—you’re the message! People come up and tell us how you received us with open arms, how you deserted the dead idols of your old life so you could embrace and serve God, the true God. They marvel at how expectantly you await the arrival of his Son, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescued us from certain doom.
Thank you LORD FOR RESCUING Beth and so many through her life and ministry!
Amen! Trust Him!
Dear Beth.
Thank you so much for this post. The Lord knew I needed to hear this! What a blessing!!
Thank you for being vulnerable….that’s tough I am learning this process.
I read “One Slender Streak of Clarity” last night and wanted to respond, but didn’t know with what exactly. Your honesty and transparency are refreshing! I had similar feelings yesterday morning before church. During my quiet time I couldn’t find the words to pray, so I finally just held up my arms in total surrender. With open hands, I gave it all to the Lord. I startled when I opened my eyes because my cat was right up in my face 🙂
Beth, I learned from you, during “Believing God”, how to grow closer to the Lord through reading his word daily, early in the morning, and praying sincerely from the heart. That was about 7 years ago. God has done so much in my life since that time. I had the privilege of seeing you live in Lubbock last month. I received confirmation of the Lord’s call on my life to teach others about him through writing. Since then, I have started blog. We shall see what he does with it. Be blessed!!
What a wonderful message! I too have had times when I’ve been able to lay it all out there to God & how freeing & helpful it was. He always helps me feel better inside even though the problem or concern may still be present.
Thank you Beth for this hit home with me as I have been struggling with something deep in my heart since my sweet mama passing .
I have been harboring some feelings towards a cousin that stepped in and took control of many things and made decisions that I was not happy with .
Everytime I think about what she did it makes me very upset , but I have defintely been trying to turn it over to the Lord , as I read your post yesterday it hit me I realky need to give this to the Lord because He is the only one that can change those feelings in me .
Thank you for writing this you do not know how much I needed it .
Praying for you Beth you are a blessing and an encouragement in my life .
Love Carol
Thank you so much for this post. I can identify with needing to tell Jesus just how you feel. I know that He already knows my deepest thoughts and feelings, but for so long I’ve been trying to hide the fact that I’m terrified of losing my teenage son. When I was 14, my 16 year old brother died in a car accident. It totally turned my life upside down. Now I’m 39 with an 18 year old son and 13 year old daughter, and I struggle with losing him every time he gets behind the wheel of the car. I’ve given him to God, I’ve prayed and had so much success with letting do…but still, in the back of my mind, is that nagging fear. Most of the time I just give him to Jesus and go on about my day. But every once in a while, I’m terrified again. I always thought I was being faithless when this terror came over me. But your words help me see that I can come to God, just being me, and tell Him that I’m afraid, that I’m scared, not of Him being faithless, but of living in this world of ours where bad things can and do happen. I love you and appreciate your words more than you’ll ever know…
Amen!! ❤️
Wow. Just what I needed to hear! Thank you.
Dear Beth,
Thank you for sharing your heart with us. Am praying for you, Conquering Sister.
Love,
Gretchen
Amen. I’m so glad God’s got us no matter what and He can handle anything I need to share and anything I’m struggling with.
I’ve had unanswered questions and some raw places for a while now, too. But I trust Him and praise Him that I can keep bringing it to Him.
Blessings!
I don’t always read these, but thankfully I did today. Once again, thank you, not only did I need this, but a dear friend/sister needed this. I have forwarded it on to her. That one lone streak represents hope to me and that in turn means to wait. That although He may only give me a streak, He is still at work and that should be enough. Thank you again. I love you…Cary
I’m so thankful that we can tell our God absolutely anything. I need that kind of safe confidante. And so do we all, I’m sure. Blessings to you, Beth!
Good Monday Morning Beth, Thank you so very much for sharing your heart. Sometimes its hard for me to do that with others and I try so hard to lean on God for everything in my life. I have been for several years an encourager in our church bible study and now on the mission encouragement group. I love doing this with God’s help, sometimes I wonder where is my encourager at, is that wrong of me to feel that way. I love your writings although I have never seen you in person, may God Bless you dearly!!
Sheila
Beth, Our God is so good, isn’t He?! I love that He doesn’t just allow us to come in this way (what you said in your post) but He desires it. Out God is SO good. I’m praying for you in whatever questioning and struggling you may have. I know (and so do you) that our God is at work doing a good thing — a VERY good thing. May His peace and joy be your in the very middle of it! Hugs.
Thank you Beth,
I needed to hear that……and I got right on my face and told Him the raw in my heart and soul, and His peace has flooded my spirit now…..I am able to walk on, in the power of His love and the strength of His Spirit IN me!
Blessings upon you!
Janice
Thank you. I could type paragraphs about needing this conversation, but I would rather simply say–thank you.
Thank you for consistently pointing me to Jesus.
Thank you! God is so into us. Praise Him. My heart needed to hear this today. I am a nurse in a pediatric ICU, this past weekend our team helped a family prepare their child for organ donation. My heart ached as this family said good bye. How do we make sense of it. Comming to God, being honest, pouring out the feeling of grief and allowing Him to fill me back up to do it again. This is the only way I have been able to do this job for 30 years. God has call me to it. I have tried leaving , but am always drawn back. Oh my God I am in awesome wonder of you!
Beth,
Thank you for the confirmation that it’s ok to be raw before the Lord. I did just that last night after going to bed and it was such a relief to tell the Lord how I felt and knew that He heard me.
To read your post this morning was such a delight and I completely understood as I read your words.
Thank you for taking time to post this timely word of encouragement.
Yep. Yes Ma’am. Me too…a-l-l- of that you wrote. Deep connection and right there with you…totally r.a.w.
Thank you for this. My heart and my brain needed to take this in today. I am so thankful that we can come before him, and pour out and be real with Him. Why is it so hard at times to pour out our hearts. Why do I sometimes find it much easier to say words and pray for others but not pour out what is really going on in the depths? Your post has prompted me to try to pour out once again. “Father God I am so thankful that you do not ever fail to hear my cries, that you are ever faithful to answer me, and that you never tire of hearing my heart.”
“But it’s hard to be godly with a lot of junk stored up in your heart”
In this one post you have laid out to me why I am struggling with prayer. I do not need to phrase things in godly terms…I have been telling God that I am longing for a friendship or mentor, someone I can be honest, open and transparent and while reading your words I felt him speak to my heart and say, “you are asking me for someone to be open and honest with but you are not this way with me” what conviction! Thank you Beth for being so honest and through you I have a better understanding of how I am to approach my God. I try to bring my best self to him and he just wants me. Me at my worst or my best, just me open honest and raw.
Yes ma’am! My very bruised heart needed to hear that.
So beautifully written-I need to get raw with the Lord myself. Lump in my throat. Thank you.
Good to hear from you! Missed your “voice” of late!
Thank you for sharing your tenderness! How I love that God often brings a message to me, and then to see He speaks it through you too! I have done a lot of Raw lately … sometimes I think I’ll bleed! He tenderly and gently tends my heart and it continues to beat.
PRAISE GOD!!!
Sister I would love to send you encouragement and tender words to help you as you have been such help to me. I will pray for you. Please know that there is sisters out here that love you, and care deeply for your tender spots too. We do not have answers but Know the One Who does!
God Bless you thoroughly today Ms. Beth!
Dear Beth,
Praying today that the Ruach of God sweep over and around you. Bless you, my sister.
Jackie
Miss Beth I so appreciate how you model for us how to get real with God! Taking the time to set the stage, to paint the picture and then share the image of that thing down deep as a ‘pine cone that was still down there pricking and sticking and crowding my heart and set it out before God, all jagged and bloody on the edges’ really helped me recognize an area I had set off to the side in my heart. It has been poking at me needing removal. Thank you so much for your words of transparency that helped this sister take action.
What an interesting word printed on your prayer bench. If anyone is interested I looked it up in Hebrew, there was quite a lot on it, but because of time I can’t pass it on.
I couldn’t quite read the word, but I believe it is Ruach and a Scripture that goes with it is Job 12:10. “In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?”
Also, Isa. 42:5–“Thus says God the LORD, Who created the heavens and stretched them out, Who spread out the earth and its offspring, Who gives breath to the people on it And spirit to those who walk in it.”
Once again, Beth, your words hit right to my heart. I have been so stressed this summer, and holding it all in. Why do I do that? It is just so dumb. God knows about it anyway, and wants to help me. Sometimes it is just so deep it’s hard to put words to it. Sometimes, I feel if I bring it to the Lord I am just going to crack in a million tiny pieces, and I am just not sure I can pull it back together again. Talking to the Lord is like singing a worship song that just opens the floodgates. The truth is, I dont always want the floodgates opened because I feel so spent afterwords. But it is what I need beyond what I feel about it. Thank you for the word. I needed to hear it.
I am so grateful for this word. I am sometimes embarrassed by my thoughts or feelings or my state of broken. It’s reassuring to hear that these too can and should be shared with the Lord just as they are. No sugar coating. And, He will not love me any less.
Yes, YeS, YES!
I experienced raw prayer earlier this summer. There is nothing like it. Nothing at all. And I too felt comfort from being heard. And He has comforted me in all of those areas now.
I pray the same for you, sweet Beth!
In addition to getting there early enough to fellowship, it also gives you a chance to stand around and talk and visit with people. That is way more fun than fellowshipping anyway.
Hi Miss Beth! I read this post last night right before heading to the Wisdom for Women meeting with other BCF ladies. As I was walking up to the house, I noticed the glass storm door…sweaty from the humidity, with a few clear streaks left by heavy drops. 🙂 I laughed out loud, and headed inside, only to receive a much needed word from the Lord, after wondering that morning if he was ever going to answer me. It wasn’t a word to “fix” everything, but it was enough to keep me clinging to Him when I have been tempted to stop praying.
Praise Him!
-Bethany
I’m sure it blesses the Lord when we spend enough time with Him to tell about things that are troubling us. I love it when my step daughter confides in me….it’s really special. Only He can fix situations and supply our needs. Why is it we don’t go to Him first. We love you Beth, for sharing your wisdom with us. Patti, Clemmons, NC
Thank you Beth, as a pastor’s wife I needed this word today!
Thanks you Beth. This is so timely, I really needed to read this entry! Just when I think life should be easier because I’m 55 years old, life presents something else new for me to turn over to God!
I am thankful God is okay with me telling Him the depths of my hurt. I am grateful I can tell Him when I don’t understand. It doesn’t mean I love Him any less. I am glad I can be myself with Him. We are going through something in our family that is heart wrenching. God lets me curl up in His arms and admit my questions. It is not that I doubt Him. I don’t. I know He is good. I know that someday He will reveal what I don’t know now and until then I can trust Him. It still hurts though. I wish it was different. There was a time I buried those feelings for fear He would be disappointed in me for having them. I realized though He already knows. Now instead of burying those feelings I cry on his shoulder and bring those feelings to Him. It is safe there. I know He knows my heart.
Beth, I wish there was a way for you to see how I found this safety in Him. Visualize a woman desperate for God—lonely, afraid, and confused. Now picture her falling in love with God and His word as she works her way through in depth Bible study after in depth Bible study. Picture her standing in different arenas with her hands held high worshipping fully as God speaks to her broken heart. The in depth Bible studies and the Living Proof Live events guided me to God over and over again. Thank you Beth!I am forever grateful! Praying for you as I know you pray for us!