Tender is the Road Home

Psalm 139:7-12

New International Version (NIV)

7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

    Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

    if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10 even there your hand will guide me,

    your right hand will hold me fast.

11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

    and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

    the night will shine like the day,

    for darkness is as light to you.

1 Corinthians 15:19

New International Version (NIV)

19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Philippians 3:20

New International Version (NIV)

20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,

John Denver was a favorite singer from my youth.   His was the first big concert I attended.  I went with friends to the big city of Seattle to see him.  I grieved when his life was cut short and wondered where he stood with God.  He was lost to us but never to God, who is a God of both mercy and justice.  He can be trusted with his eternity. I like this song "Tenderly Calling."  When I listen to it, I  am assured that God had made himself know to John, and what John did with that knowledge is between him and the One who loves him so.

Tenderly Calling - John Denver

The lyrics:

Home, come on home

Ye who are weary come home

Softly and tenderly calling

Home, come on home

Sometimes when Im feeling lonesome

And no one on earth seems to care

Im all by myself in the darkness

With no one and nothing to share

Just when it feels like its hopeless

And Ill never make it alone

I hear the voices of angels

Tenderly calling me home

Home, come on home

Ye who are weary come home

Softly and tenderly calling

Home, come on home

I try to keep it together

I never let on that Im scared

Still sometimes I fall to pieces

Scattered and lost everywhere

Just when it feels like theres no one

To mend all my broken down dreams

I hear a voice deep inside me

Tenderly calling to me

Home, come on home

Ye who are weary come home

Softly and tenderly calling

Home, come on home

Engraved On His Palms

Isaiah 49:15, 16a (NIV)

¹⁵ “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
   and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
   I will not forget you! ¹⁶ See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; 

Psalm 139: 1-4 (NIV)

 ¹ You have searched me, LORD,
   and you know me. ² You know when I sit and when I rise;
   you perceive my thoughts from afar. ³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
   you are familiar with all my ways. ⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
   you, LORD, know it completely. ⁵ You hem me in behind and before,
   and you lay your hand upon me.

How blessed are the hands of my Savior!  His hands are always upon me, around me, and under me.   I am safely held by His love, now and forever.  I am looking forward to that day when I will be able to trace my name in His nailed-scarred hands.   The very thought makes me want to weep with joy.   It also calls me to tell others of the love of Jesus, because the thought that there are those who will live their lives denying their Lord is a sadness I don't want to bear.   Yet, my Jesus bears it.  

Forgive me Lord, when I fail by my thoughts, words, and deeds to bear witness of my Savior.   I do love You.

"Your Love Will Find Me" - Brian Doerksen

Letting The Chains Go

Acts 12:7 (NIV)

Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell. He struck Peter on the side and woke him up. "Quick, get up!" he said, and the chains fell off Peter's wrists.

I sat down at my computer tonight feeling disappointment in someone else's sin and wondering what to write.   The Charles Wesley hymn, "And Can It Be That I Should Gain?" immediately came to mind crowding out all other thoughts.   Bound by sin but released from my own chains, I am forever grateful for the mercy and forgiveness shown to me.   It is an amazing love that my God should die for me!   It's amazing too that His concern is for my relationship to Him.   It's where my focus should be.   May it never be that I try to wear the chains again!  Leave them behind and rise, go forth, and follow.   I am covered by the blood of the Lamb and His grace is more than sufficient.

And can it be that I should gain

An interest in the Savior’s blood?

Died He for me, who caused His pain—

For me, who Him to death pursued?

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Amazing love! How can it be,

That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

And Can It Be - The Enfield Hymn Sessions, Resolved Music, Vol. 1

Love Me Tender

I have found myself a little melancholic this week after learning the new owners of our foreclosed home are changing everything I liked about it, even the special things I added to it.   I know the house is no longer mine, that they can do as they please, but still it hurts.   It's one of those weeks when I would dearly love to have direct and personal comfort from God, hence the picture of the angel delivering flowers.   There are times when I'd like a note from God on my pillow telling me how He loves me.  Actually I do have that, it's God's Word.   It is more than enough.   Be happy, I tell myself for the plentiful toad stools and moss that flourish in this little house under the weeping willow.   My Creator made them also.   Still  flowers and maybe even a heart shaped box of chocolates would go a long way.

Love Me Tender - Beth Nielsen Chapman