The Season of Light

During Advent, this glorious Season of Light, I remember all that Christ has done for me. 

I lift up my eyes to my Maker and thank Him for being my God, my Healer, and my All. 

I invite you to keep Advent in your heart this year, slowing down to reflect on the meaning of Christmas. Like Mary, may we ponder the miracle of Jesus and make room for Him in our hearts. When we invite Him in, what we've said yes to is healing, restoration, and hope. 

His arrival means Life!

This poem I wrote a few months ago is being published in the next edition of HEAL Magazine. It summarizes what Christ has done and continues to do every day as I remain close to Him.

When we pray to God in our despair, He meets us there. 

He is our Emmanuel — God with us. 

Here's a sneak peek.

my life

loved

created

known

hurt

abandoned

b - r - o - k - e - n

sustained

seen

lost

pursued

     d

          e

              s

                 p

                      a

                           i

                                 r

                                      i

                                           n

                                               G      

  n

            i

       y

a

         r

   p

heard

called

found

embraced

forgiven

surrendered

comforted

restored

renewed

m - e - n - d - e - d

healed

loved

Prepare a manger for Christ in your heart, for He longs to give you Life.

Have a blessed Advent and Christmas,

Dr Mari

"'He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.'"

(Luke 1:32-33)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! 

(2 Corinthians 5:17)

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. 
(John 1:5)

For more reflections about Advent, read Advent Word of the Day: Devotion.

A Season of Thanks

As we approach the week set aside to give thanks, it is good to remember that living each day with a thankful heart is powerful. While praying with my family last night, our sweet daughter prayed,

"Lord, we all have so much already, but we sometimes want more. You have given us everything we need. Help us, Lord, to be thankful. Help us move out of the season of greed into the season of thanks. Help us with this, Lord. Help us really understand what it means to be thankful."

I am so thankful for my children, for they help me see God and know His heart. Here's the psalm our eleven year-old son wrote for Bible class.

"Praise be to the Lord. 

He has blessed us. 

Allow Him to be exalted higher than the heavens. 

He cares for His People. 

Make forth great celebrations in His name. 

He has shown us mercy. 

Allow Him a place in your heart. 

He created it and blessed it. 

Thank Him for creation.

He has given us it.

Love Him with all your heart, soul, and mind. 

His love is infinite."

May we be thankful for God's blessings each day and remain in a season of thanks in our hearts.

Thankful,

Dr Mari

Prayer by H.W., Psalm by J.W. All Rights Reserved.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

Colossians 2:6,7

Healing is Possible ... And It Starts With Me

This weekend I experienced a moving time of worship at a concert by All Sons & Daughters and Tim Timmons. It would be inaccurate to simply call it a concert; it was an experience of God's presence and an opportunity to thank Him with our voices and our hearts. I especially enjoyed watching so many young people kneeling and praying alongside their friends, together, in worship. I have many new favorite songs, including Great Are You Lord, God With Us, and Called Me Higher (by All Sons & Daughters).

Another new favorite is Tim Timmons' Starts With Me. He shared his story of finding hope in Christ when dealing with what doctors deemed an impossible medical challenge. But in Matthew 19:26, Jesus said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

Twelve years after he was told he wouldn't live beyond five years, Tim Timmons travels the country telling others about the God who redeems, restores, and makes us whole.

As a doctor, I point toward God whenever people experience healing and thank me for it. Although we can all be instruments of healing in various ways, it is the Healer who works through us every time. We are the broken; He is the Healer.

Malachi 4:2 proclaims, “But for you who revere My name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its rays.” Such a promise makes me want to thank my Healer and give Him all the glory!

Lord, help us come to You as we are, 

broken and in need of Your healing touch. 

May we experience the joy

that comes from trusting You with our lives. 

For when we fall on our knees and surrender to Your will, 

our life begins. 

I agree with Tim Timmons that revival starts with me. It starts with each one of us ... on our knees ... trusting a loving, all-powerful God who loves us and gave everything for us.

May we, too, give Him everything.

Trust Him!
Dr Mari

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.” (James 1:17)

For more inspiration, read Healing, Faith, and Love: A Father's Day Tribute.

Photograph by Manuel Diaz Photography. Used with permission. All Rights Reserved.

Compassion Wears Pink: The Power of Shared Suffering

A firefighter in a pink firetruck wearing a pink fire suit? I never thought I'd see it. But that's what I saw this week in a TV interview with Josh Baker of Pink Heals and Liesa Miles, a beloved Spanish teacher. The interview aired on The Good Life and can be viewed here.

Most of us call her Profe (short for professor), a perfect name for one whose life is a lesson in strength, courage, and faith. She is our Profe!

When asked by Barbara Beck what she tells her two sons and husband about not knowing what the future holds while battling breast cancer, here's some of what Profe had to say:

"Know that you must rest on Scripture. We've never been promised easy, we've never been promised health.... In fact, quite the opposite ... we will have times of trouble, and those are the times when we persevere and we get stronger and we grow. And it is our job to bring attention to God during those times."

This inspiring woman of faith has kept her sense of humor, radiance, and joy while walking a tough path. She jokes, "I'm not a girly girl and that is the joke, that God sent me breast cancer so I'd have to wear pink." 

Profe reminds me of my mother, who walked through the challenge of breast cancer with courage, grace, and dignity, never losing her joy or her selflessness. Her example and legacy still impact my life. More than twenty years later, she continues to inspire all who knew her.

This resemblance is precisely why Profe is in my heart so strongly. I can see my mother's love, strength, and integrity in her. I also love seeing how she allows God to use her to strengthen others through her suffering. That is a tremendous gift.

I've come to understand something powerful about healing, compassion, and our bond as human beings. There truly is a purpose in suffering, and this realization transforms the experience into something helpful and even hopeful. Redemption is possible. In fact, with Christ in our lives, redemption is our destiny. For "we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

I leave you with some verses that help us understand the purpose of suffering a little bit better. I am thankful for people like Profe and my mother who help us learn to suffer with grace, faith, humor, dignity, and purpose. Thank You, Lord, for blessing my life with people like them.

Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 

Romans 8:17-18

 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings.

Philippians 3:10 

Now I rejoice in what I am suffering for you, and I fill up in my flesh what is still lacking in regard to Christ’s afflictions, for the sake of his body, which is the church.

Colossians 1:24 

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. 

Romans 5:1-4

“I have told you these things, so that in me (Jesus) you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
John 16:33 

God's ways are the path of life. May we rest on His promises and follow only Him, the source of strength, hope, and life.

In Hope,

Dr Mari 

For more inspiration, see Living on Mission: What's That All About? 

From My Heart to Yours: A Prayer and A Song

Here's the cry of my heart as I continue to intercede for so many people I love who are suffering or in the midst of great spiritual battles. My prayer is that your minds will be renewed with God's Word, that every lie will be drowned out by the Truth, grace, and life found on every page of God's holy Word.

During times of great need, my prayers get so simple. Invariably, in that simplicity, I meet God. I am found. And in His presence, I am healed. May this be your experience as you call on Him and seek His face.

I pray for all of you in the words of Paul, a man transformed by the love of Christ,

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. 

(Ephesians 3:14-21)

I invite you to meditate on every verse in this passage from Ephesians, to read it several times today and every day for a season and reflect deeply on its truth and hope. Let it renew your mind and give you a fresh start that fans into flame the gift of your faith in Christ.

And may this song help you as you pray and trust.

Be still and know that I am God. 

(Psalm 46:10)

Be still.
Dr Mari

Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. 

No one comes to the Father except through Me.'

(John 14:6) 

'No weapon forged against you will prevail,
    and you will refute every tongue that accuses you.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
    and this is their vindication from Me,'
declares the Lord.

(Isaiah 54:17) 

For more inspiration, read Trust: A Pathway to Peace. 

Thirst No More

A few months ago, the hospital floor where I was scheduled to speak was flooded, forcing much last-minute scrambling. Thanks to the organizer's diligence and faith, we were still able to meet and hear the message God had for us that morning. I also lost my voice two days before the talk, which forced me on a silent retreat that moved the talk in a whole new direction. Though I wouldn't describe it as a flood, I experienced God's living waters while preparing and speaking that day. It is hard to describe, so I won't try, but you can read more about it here.

Ever since that day, there's been a recurrent theme of water in my spiritual journey. I love times like this when God's Word continually drives home the same message. I can't imagine a better message for me during this season of life -- a season of waiting.

Are you in a season of waiting? Are you wondering why God's gone silent? In the waiting, are you in need of a fresh experience of God's living waters?

Here's a bit of encouragement to refresh you as you wait on God. The first verse may not sound encouraging, but it is ... because of its helpful warning. As we wait on God, we must resist the temptation to dig our own cisterns!

"'My people have committed two sins: They have forsaken me, the spring of living water, and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water.... Consider then and realize how evil and bitter it is for you when you forsake the Lord your God and have no awe of me,' 

declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty." 

(Jeremiah 2:13, 19b)

Jesus' words below inspire the sense of awe God says we need,

"On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice,  
'Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.  
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, 
rivers of living water will flow from within them.'” (John 7:37-38)

What a promise!

Two thousand years ago, Jesus went to Samaria and sat down by Jacob's well in the town of Sychar. "When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, 'Will you give me a drink?'" (John 4:7)

Imagine that! The God of the universe asking you for a drink!

Knowing that Jews did not associate with Samaritans, she said to him, "'You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?'

"Jesus answered her, 'If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.... Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life'" (John 4:9-10,13-14).

I don't know about you, but I'm thirsty. I'm thirsty often. And like the Samaritan woman, I have found that Jesus keeps his word. When I come to him thirsty, I am no longer thirsty. He satisfies the soul. He IS the Living Water my soul needs.

So speak, Lord, for Your servant is listening. I am thirsty for Your Word. Your living Word. I am thirsty for Your Truth. Your Wisdom. Your Life.

I give you my broken cisterns, Lord. Feed my soul with Your living water, and I shall live.

Drink!

Dr Mari

Photo by Manuel Díaz Photography. Used with permission. All Rights Reserved.

My New Promotion: A Life of Grace

“As each has received a gift, employ it in serving one another, as good managers of the grace of God in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4:10)

What a beautiful verse from Peter, a man known for being more than a little rough around the edges. This fisherman-turned-fisher-of-souls struggled with his promotion. In fact, after the One he followed was repaid for a ministry of love, service, and healing on a lonely cross, Peter returned to what he knew. He went back to fishing. Yet, having been promoted to a new ministry, the fishing experience was simply not the same, and the catch was disappointing.

Once Peter began to grasp that, as promised, Jesus defeated death, the grave, and the power of sin, Peter regained a sense of purpose, and he was ready to give his own life for the sake of Jesus.

Peter’s life was transformed through a relationship with the living God. Not exactly known for his social graces or interpersonal skills, Peter’s heart clearly softened after his transformation. He became interested in others’ well-being and the state of their hearts and souls. Peter embraced his new calling as God's ambassador of grace, and his focus shifted from earthly things to eternal things.

“As each has received a gift,” said Peter, “employ it in serving one another.” He understood that all gifts come from above for a reason. Our gifts are not for hoarding, and they are certainly not for boasting. We are to serve one another with our gifts.

Peter reminds every follower of Jesus that we’ve been promoted by the King. Our gifts have eternal purposes. Peter calls us to be good “managers of the grace of God in its various forms.” As servants of Christ, sent by Him to finish His work on earth, we are managers of God’s grace.  

We are not called to be managers and manipulators of people or events. Peter says that we are to manage God’s grace, dispensing it in season and out of season. Like a river bringing sustenance downstream, we've been given a gift ... to share.

God has entrusted His grace to us; this calls for good stewardship.

God’s grace, God’s unmerited favor that flows from the love He’s lavished on us, is the gift that keeps on giving. As we share God's love with others, their ability to love increases. When we share a smile and offer kindness to a stranger, God's love is manifest. When we give without expecting something in return, the recipient experiences God's grace flowing like a river.

As when we love others, God's grace multiplies when it is shared. Here are a few more thoughts on grace:

"One who loves a pure heart and who speaks with grace will have the king for a friend" (Proverbs 22:11).

"For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (John 1:17).

"With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them" (Acts 4:33-34a).

"For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace" (Romans 6:14).

Like Peter, we've been promoted. We are instruments of grace, love, and peace. Let us embrace our promotion and become willing ministers of God's grace, spreading His goodness and love in this broken world.

Joyfully,
Dr Mari

For more on God's gift of grace, read Second Chances: Heaven's Heart.

Photograph by Manuel Diaz Photography. Used with permission. All Rights Reserved.