We love fruit in our family. Fresh fruit, canned fruit, dried fruit, jammed fruit, fruit from our own garden, or fruit from the other side of the world. We love citrus fruit, stone fruit, berries… Fruit can be a taste of the familiar or the tang of the exotic. We love to eat it raw, to bake it into recipes, to puree it into smoothies. Last week, I even learned to make homemade fruit roll-ups. With a kiddo who despises vegetables, fruit is often the way I get much-needed nutrients into all of us. And a much-appreciated taste of yumminess too.

Fruit is a pretty amazing thing. As a homeschool mom, I’ve had the opportunity to study it with my kids in our science classes. And as a Christian, I of course read about it a lot in the scriptures. For instance, take this passage from Colossians 1:3-6

3 We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints; 5 because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as it has also in all the world, and is bringing forth fruit, as it is also among you since the day you heard and knew the grace of God in truth… (NKJV, emphasis mine)

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To take out some of the phrases there for focusing purposes, that says “because of the hope which is laid up for you in heaven, which you heard in the gospel, which is bringing forth fruit.”

Now, anyone who knows me even a little knows that hope and I are good friends. I’m not only an optimist, I’m a see-the-good-in-everyone sort of person, a cling-to-hope-at-all-costs sort of girl. So any time the word is mentioned in the Bible, my spiritual ears perk right up. As we were discussing this passage in our Bible study last week, my mind kept circling around those particular words. Hope comes from the Gospel…the Gospel brings forth fruit.

As we talked about what this fruit is, it’s easy to come up with the usual answer: spreading that same Good News to others so that they can believe too. Yes, absolutely.

But, with memories of strawberries and blueberries and mango and peaches still fresh in my mind from my fruit roll-up making adventure a couple days before, I had to look at this a little more closely.

In other passages, we hear of the Gospel message as a seed. It’s planted, watered, fed. As it sprouts, the seed itself passes away and becomes a plant. It’s no longer a seed at all–it’s changed. Transformed. Why? So that it can become something more.

I love that it’s likened to a fruit-bearing plant though. Because part of the very nature of a plant is to spread its seeds. WHY do we bear fruit? Love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control? For OTHERS.

One of the things I learned in our science class is that the plant itself doesn’t benefit at all from the fruit it bears. The sole purpose of it is to be delicious. Alluring. To appeal to animals so that they come, eat it, and thereby transport the seeds elsewhere, so that they’re deposited far and wide and the plant can find new life somewhere else.

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So what is the purpose of us learning to produce those fruits of the Spirit? Not for our own sake–for His. So that others come, smell the fragrance of His peace, see the beauty of His love, taste the perfection of His Joy. Our job as Christ followers is to share those things with anyone who walks by hungry. So that they eat of it, and the seed nestles deep inside. So that He can water it and it can grow. And so that then that person too can experience the transformative power of God and turn from fallow ground with a dried up seed inside to a life-giving, thriving tree spreading out their limbs and offering His love to others.

I’d always considered the Fruits of the Spirit to be things we should want for our own sakes; or for their own sakes. Because they’re, well, good. Because they’ll make us better people. Holier. More worthy of Him. And that’s certainly true…

But that’s only half the story, isn’t it? The other half isn’t about us at all. It’s about THEM. The other people in our world. Our spouses and children, our parents and grandparents, and our aunts, uncles, and cousins. Our friends, our neighbors, the strangers in the grocery store. The drivers who cut us off and the customer service rep who won’t listen. The homeless man begging for money on the street corner. The mother desperate for clean water in Africa.

Each and every one of them needs the fruit–because that fruit carried the seeds of the Gospel, and that’s where our hope is found.

I don’t know about you, but that changes my perspective a bit on why I should be working hard to be the person He wants me to be.

And it makes me look at my beloved fruit differently too. My daughter and I joke that the orange marmalade we made is “sunshine in a jar” (because seriously!)–but it’s not only that. In a way, it’s hope in a jar too. A reminder that the goodness of others is our nourishment…and that our own ought to be theirs in return.

I’ve been thinking a lot about character lately. The kinds I write, yes…but also our characters. And how, really, the two are pretty much the same, hence the shared name. 😉

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I remember back in the day when I was a 12/13-yr-old, writing the first draft of the book that eventually became The Lost Heiress. As I wrote Brook, it didn’t take me long to realize she was a bit too, er, perfect to be a likable heroine. I’d paid attention to the lessons in my literature class–I knew that a good character was supposed to have–gasp–faults.

But Brook was, at that point, Idealized Me. She was what I wished I was. So I remember sitting down with a notebook and a pencil and scratching across the top of the page “Brook’s Faults.” I added things like “bad temper” and “impulsive.” Things I really couldn’t claim, but they seemed like more fun for a heroine than my faults.

The more stories I’ve written, the more characters I’ve poured onto the page, the less likely I am to ever enumerate their faults on a piece of paper. Do they have them? Sure. Faults…maybe weaknesses…sometimes it’s more an emotional injury…occasionally it’s what modern society would even deem an illness–mental or physical.

But as I’ve been pondering these things over the last week, thinking especially about the weaknesses that we might try to fix with medication, the kinds we have to manage, something has struck me.

The very things that we try to get rid of, to manage, to moderate, to medicate; the things we try to ignore, make excuses for, or are ashamed of…those are the things through which God uses us. The way by which He reaches us. They are the things that make us aware of our need for Him, and sometimes they’re the things through which His voice even comes.

That really made me stop and think. I’ve always imagined that God uses our strengths–which of course He does. But our hurts? Our insecurities? Our illnesses? The things the world tells us we ought to obliterate at any cost? How are those anything but bad?

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In some cases, they do definitely need to be addressed–I’d never say they shouldn’t be! But through the addressing, God usually teaches us something. Through the managing, He reveals Himself. Through the hardship, He whispers grace and strength into our spirits.

When we’re lonely, we reach out for Him. When we’re sick, we lean on His arms. When our mind isn’t working as it should, there may be more room in it to hear Him. When our tempers rise, we often speak a truth that needs healing.

We all have our faults, whether we’re Christians or not. But what I’ve come to appreciate about those faults as I write them into my characters is that it’s in our very weaknesses that His strength best shows. A lot of society isn’t going to understand that–they’ll call us crazy, accuse us of listening to voices in our head, think we’re irrational.

They have a point. 😉 Faith isn’t rational. It goes well beyond that. But it’s when it’s irrational, radical even, that it changes us. Changes our families. Changes the world.

Because when we let Him work not only through our strengths, but through our weaknesses, then we’re making everyone around us think, “Why? How? Who?”

The answer to all those questions is the same: Jesus.

How has He worked through a weakness in your life?

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Familiar words, right? We’ve all read those verses a million times. I was pretty sure I’d examined them from every possible perspective. But last time I read them, a new little seed of inspiration was planted that I’ve been keeping an eye on. 😉

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I’m a writer (which you obviously know). I love words. I love philosophizing about them. I love making art with them. I love harnessing them to express Truth and Light. And I LOVE when God talks about them–and about their power. Power which John 1:3 states in a way that sheds new light on the nature of those words I so love.

In Genesis, God SPOKE the world into existence. “And God said, ‘Let there be…'” Here in John, Jesus IS that Word through which all things were made. Have those two pieces clicked in your mind before? I can’t believe it took this long for them to click for me, LOL. That our Savior is the thing by which and through which creation happens. And THAT is why John calls him the Word. (To which my husband said, “Well yeah…” proving that I’m definitely late to this epiphany, LOL. But I’m going to keep talking about it anyway.)

So what does that say about the true power of words?

Words are the creative force. It is through words that things happen. 

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I need to think about that for a minute. I use words for a living–I create a lot with them. Whole worlds, one might argue…but imaginary ones. When it comes to actual building, I guess I always thought that the ACTIONS were the more important thing. The other day my husband and son were building a desk together from some scrap wood (a.k.a. an old bookshelf that had collapsed, LOL), and if you ask me what effected the creation, I’d say “screws, wood, and a screwdriver.”

But do you know what else I noticed while they were building? The words exchanged. This is the first real building project they’ve done together, and I loved hearing the instructions float out to me in the kitchen. “Now this is how you do this…” my husband would say. And, “How do you want this part?”

Then would come my son’s answer. “Yeah, that looks good. Let’s put this piece here…”

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A simple exchange between a very earthly father and son who were repurposing something already made. The desk could have been built without those, right?

Maybe…because they are a very earthly, physical, corporeal father and son. The Father and Son, on the other hand, at the brink of our creation…they’re something different. They are, the Bible tells us, Spirit. That’s why it was such a miracle that Jesus wrapped himself in flesh and became one of us.

Pure Spirit doesn’t have hands like we do, or like we’d recognize. Pure Spirit certainly doesn’t have (or need) an electric screwdriver or cheap particle board. Pure Spirit does not interact with this physical world as we physical beings do. How does it?

Through words.

Let that sink in–I know I am. How did God create? With words. How did God interact with man from the dawn of time through each of the prophets? With words. What did God-Made-Man do when he began his ministry? Teaching and preaching–WORDS. Yes, he healed too. I know he did. And how did he often choose to heal? With words. Sometimes he touched, yes. But did he have to? I’m reminded of what that faithful centurion said in Luke 7:7. “But say the word, and my servant will be healed.“

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The fact that God shared these with us–gifted them to us and then exchanged them with us…that’s pretty amazing. More, it’s not only a gift, it’s a responsibility.

He gave us the very tools of creation. And what are we doing with them? How often do we use them to tear each other down instead of build each other up? To complain instead of praise? How often are our words careless, thoughtless, unbridled?

What might change in our lives if we could see what each of our words did, like we can see what God’s words do? We’d see the harm that thoughtless verbal jab really did to our coworker or spouse or child. We’d see what worlds were built in them instead when we instruct or praise or encourage. And I have a feeling what we chose to say would be very different.

Well, my friends, our physical eyes may not be able to see it–but it’s no less real for that. So perhaps our new prayer ought to be, “Lord, open our spiritual eyes, so that we might see the true power of our words…and use them for You.”

‘Tis the season for snow here in America (or at least the more northern parts of it), and so I thought it would be a great time to share a devotional that one of my characters wrote. 😉 These are the words of LuAnn Sherrill from the Secrets of Wayfarers Inn #20, There’s No Place Like Holmes. Which just released, so I thought it would be a great time to share.

In the story, there had just been a big snow storm, which had LuAnn waxing philosophical. In reality, I wrote this on my writing retreat last April. 😉 It isn’t all that long, but hopefully it’s something that will speak to you in these bleak, cold days of winter…especially when the white stuff is falling.

***

This morning, not surprisingly, I was thinking about snow. I was
thinking about how the blood of the Lamb makes us as white and pure as those
drifts outside. But as I studied our world, I realized it was a lot more than
that. Think about the world you see when you look out the window after a fresh snow.

It isn’t just white. Snow covers things. It hides them, just as we are
hidden in the wings of our Lord. Snow rounds the edges, just as our God will round
ours, if we let Him. Snow has this remarkable ability to become all we see, just
as our Savior fills our vision.

Snow can be a powerful, driving force. But one flake… One flake is nothing, in one sense. It has no power on its own. But it
has infinite beauty. When we look at a snowflake, we see the laws that the
Creator put into effect, we see the patterns He set in motion. 

And we, my
friends, are the same. We are the possessors of infinite beauty. We are made,
each one of us, in His image…yet each one, like a crystal of snow, is different.
Because He is infinite, while we are finite. He is the atmosphere to our single
flake.

But one of the most amazing things He did for us was to set us with
other snowflakes. We see what effect a snowstorm, a blizzard, can have. And the
same is true of His children. Alone, we may be so small that sometimes we think
we go unseen. But we’re part of something. Part of a driving force. And
together, we can work miracles. We can turn a plain into a mountain.

And we can turn a mountain into a cloud. We have only to play out our
role in His story. 

Dear Lord, thank You for filling us. Thank You for filling our hearts every day that we let You in.
Thank You for giving us the fellowship of friends. Of family. Bless each one reading this, Father, and draw us all closer to You. Soothe hurting hearts and speak
truth to our spirits. Fill our conversations through with Your Truth. Amen. 

PROMISE.

That was my word for 2019. As I blogged about it way back in the first week of January, I said I’d keep an eye out for how God’s promise would play out in my life this year.

Confession: I really didn’t.

In fact, I didn’t even remember that it was my word of the year. I had to look it up on the blog to remind myself a few weeks ago, and I felt quite the mental slap to realize I had a word so, well, promising and didn’t cling to it.

But as I reviewed the post, the scriptures I’d included in it, the thoughts I’d had at the time…it’s okay that I forgot. In fact, it totally fits with the whole purpose of the word as it was given to me. Because the thing that struck me then and which struck me anew as I read my words from a year ago is this:

It’s when we think God has forgotten His promise to us that He’s fulfilling it.

It’s been a difficult year. I finished up the last books of the 6-due-in-18-months schedule I’d been on, and I was seriously exhausted by the end of it. (Hence why I spent three weeks in November frantically rewriting the last of those books, which certainly told the tale of exhaustion, LOL.) My daughter began high school, which in homeschooling world means a bit more intensity for me in terms of grade-and-record-keeping. And my husband is changing careers, which comes with some stress…okay, a lot of stress.

But with the PROMISE of Joy. Something I need to remember now. And cling to. 

Something I need to examine. I sent my blog post from Jan 1 to my husband a few weeks ago, and he asked, “But what exactly IS the promise God has given us?”

He never promises us smooth sailing. He never promises us career success. He never promises us fame or acclaim or anything the world deems “good.” So what is at the heart of His promise?

I will never leave you or forsake you.

Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.

Seek first the kingdom of God and the rest will be added.

His presence is, ultimately, our promise. Things will go wrong–but He’ll be there. If we keep our focus on Him, nothing else will matter–and we’ll spread the good news of him to everyone else.

A week before Christmas, my family started reading a book together morning and night called Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals (there’s a free app for smart phones too that has the exact same stuff in it!). It takes the traditional prayers of the church, both Catholic and Protestant, and combines them into one volume meant to connect us with other Christians around the world and throughout history; to be approachable to different denominations and backgrounds and help us seek unity with one another through our shared roots. The authors explain in the introduction that these sorts of prayers can be used to hide in…but they can also be used to teach us about the form of prayer and to be a wonderful jumping-off place for our more personal ones. There’s a place in each session where you pause to pray for what’s on your list and praise God for what He’s done.

Each morning prayer ends with this, which I think is a beautiful benediction for us all as we close out a year and prepare for a new one:

May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you : wherever he may send you;

may he guide you through the wilderness : protect you through the storm;

may he bring you home rejoicing: at the wonders he has shown you;

may he bring you home rejoicing : once again into our doors.

We never know where He’ll send us. The wildernesses we may go through. The storms that will come. We don’t know what the new year will bring. But we DO know that He’s there. In the whirlwind and in the whisper. We know that He does the miraculous every day, and that we ought to be looking for it, ought to be filled with wonder at the mystery that is our God. We know that when our eyes remain fixed on him, there is always Joy to be found. Always something to rejoice over.

We know that Christ is the ultimate promise fulfilled.