Mother of the Grooms

"The history of God's people throughout all generations consists of choices made in response to him as we relate to one another in families, friendships, daily work, and the FESTIVE TIMES of which life is made.  Our lives are part of a tapestry that has been in the making long before we were born and will continue after we've gone.  God has woven each of us into a place and a role in the history of redemption.  The photographs, diaries, and scrapbooks in which we chronicle our lives become avenues for remembering God's faithfulness to us and to his plan....by looking back over our written narratives and the images we've preserved on film, we gain perspective and are reminded of the ways He has strengthened us and changed our hearts or our circumstances.  We can echo these words of the writer of Lamentations:

      'Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love we are  not consumed, for his compassions never fail.  They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.'" Lamentations 3:21-23

Documenting our histories gives us reference points for remembering the details of God's sovereign and loving care.  Deuteronomy 4:9 tells us, 'Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live.  Teach them to your children and to their children after them.'  Recalling the many ways God has comforted us in our troubles - tracing the evidence of his movement in our lives and his answers to our prayers aids us in giving to others the comfort and care we ourselves have received from him."

- Andi Ashworth in Real Love for Real Life

When I imagined having children one day, I never imagined this.....

I did not imagine that I would be the Mother of three sons.  But God knew from before the Creation of the Universe that I would have the rich treasure of giving birth to these three male image bearers and that He had uniquely positioned me to be a Mother of Grooms.

Shortly after Taylor was born I was working as a Wedding Director on weekends and I began to watch the "MOTG" Mother of the Groom like never before.  I began to wonder what that time might be like many years in the distance.  I believe way back then God was giving me the grace to envision the delight of releasing sons into the treasure of starting their own new family with their wives.  That day has come and passed.  What a great JOY to see our two oldest, Taylor and Trent, become husbands, to Ashley and Meg!

These three sons have changed me in innumerable ways over the last 26 years.

They have led me into adventures I would never have even known could exist.  They have led me to humbly face my inadequacies and cry out to God day after day.  They have loved me and prayed for me and laughed with me and listened to me wrestle, read stories, sing, and so much more.  They have invited me to exercise muscles of faith  - each of them from their tiniest beginnings.  I am so rich because I have been given the gift of life long friendship with these three sons!

Over the previous 25 years if someone would have told me that within a three week period of time when I was 50 years old, that I would be the Mother of not one, but two grooms, I would have been shocked and stunned!  But again, God knew this beautiful, brilliant, grace filled gift before my life even began.  "My life is in the hands of the Maker of Heaven."  Truly.  The expansive faithfulness of God has been on display as He has provided for our every need!

So this day, with a full heart and overflowing Gratitude to our Great Father who always gives good gifts and constant light and life, I look to these three sons with awe.  God has uniquely positioned them in my life. They continue to point further out beyond what I would have imagined for myself.  They continue to dance with me in the rain and play with me in the sun.  They remind me that this is not my true Home and that THE Wedding Supper of the Lamb is coming.  Our Bridegroom King will raise His glass in joyful declaration.  I am so thankful for these days where I had the great gifts of being the Mother of the Grooms.  I look out beyond the now to the day when we will be the BRIDE of Christ together.  Until then here's to "more than we can imagine" and Here's to remembering God's GREAT and UNSTOPPABLE faithfulness to this Mothers of Sons!

Let NOT Your Hearts be TROUBLED

Jesus spoke these words as teaching words John tells me in John 14:1 - here are the words of the Amplified Bible: Do not let your hearts be troubled (distressed, agitated). You believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on God; believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely also on Me.

On this Sabbath day I had thought I would be going to Windy Gap to camp with the Class of 2015 and the other leaders and students - including Damon and Trey.  I had thought I would be sharing the story of GOD'S GRACE that Pua Coffman had invited me to share months ago at the camp event.  I am very aware that today, this Sabbath day, my heart is tempted to be very agitated and troubled that I am actually NOT doing those things I had thought I would be doing.  Today I am Sabbath-ing differently than I have over the last quarter of a century and I am hearing afresh Jesus inviting me to believe in and adhere to and trust in and rely on HIM.

On Monday, July 14, 2014, the Senior Leadership of our church told Damon that they were going in a direction in the high school ministry that did not include his leadership.  He was released from his position as High School Pastor.  When I filmed THIS video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObhW0qAGsQs&feature=youtu.be

I thought that the "end" I would be telling "live" at Windy Gap would mostly focusing on the death of my Father in 1985 (my senior year of high school) from Lymphoma Cancer.  But God had different plans for this story to be told.  On Wednesday, July 30, 2014, I was given the opportunity to share this story publicly on our last night at TNT and to declare that the WORD OF GOD is Living and ACTIVE and continues to speak to my heart and lead me even to current time.  I was given the gift of proclaiming the TREASURE of watching Damon shepherd the next generation over the last 25 years.

I was given the opportunity to thank the men, women and children gathered for growing alongside Damon and I and petition them to intercede for us as we ask our God to take us wherever HE is calling and to stretch our faith and trust beyond any borders.    God allowed our three sons to grieve and remember with us and all three of them have been impacted in this place over the last decades.

I do not have a human Father that is living that I can go to and cry on his shoulder or ask his counsel or hear him pray over my family and I today.  I do have a heavenly Father who is continuing to call us to believe that Psalm 78 is still ALIVE today.  WE ARE SO DUSTY and like flowers of the field we will FADE - but His WORD, His CALL, His EQUIPPING in us will bear FRUIT THAT WILL LAST.

"The Word of God is never INEFFECTIVE; it will ALWAYS PRODUCE.  When we speak God's WORDS into situations, as the Holy Spirit directs, we are sprinkling the seeds of God, which then gives HIM the ability to cause LIFE TO COME FORTH!" - Dutch Sheets in Intercessory Prayer

A Larger Generous Living! Happy Mother's Day!

"The world of the generous gets larger and larger; the world of the stingy gets smaller and smaller." Proverbs 11:24

From the beginning you were not stingy with the waiting it took,

the reconciling with your own story and your own Mother.

You chose to be generous and persistent with your longing for those 9 years while you and Dad wondered if a baby would be in your arms.

Thank you for being generous with your heart as you welcomed me into the world in November of 1967 and received God's addition to the family of Jimmy and Anne.

Thank you for the generousity in sacrifice in ways I can now only imagine since I, too, have been a Mother for 2 decades.

Thank you for showing me what being delighted in looks like. 

Thank you for your generousity in CELEBRATING me for over 4 decades.  For party hats and candles and cakes and games and laughter and remembering and singing and being aware that every life is a gift from God and meant to be CELEBRATED - as a way to tell HIM Thank you!

Thank you for being so faithful to speak the truth that true beauty is rooted in the unseen - far below the "book's cover" - Your story is beautiful because it speaks of your God who has NEVER let go of you - and NEVER WILL!  Thank you for generously sharing your beauty with me!

Thank you for your generousity as God's vessel to carry and deliver

my incredible sister, Nikki Aurelia.

I have seen the fingerprints of GOD on her since the moment I first met her.

I long to love her more and more in ways that only eternity can contain.

I long to practice GENEROUS AGAPE

on both of you.

I long to honor the life of James Edward Johnson by practicing GENEROUS AGAPE LOVE between not just the

Mother, Anne and Daughters, Lea and Nikki -

but in the next generation of Taylor, Trent and Trey - and

those that we love and touch day in and day out.

I pray this Mother's Day your world will be multiplied as you RECEIVE ANEW the GENEROUS AGAPE LOVE and PRESENCE of the KING OF KINGS.

I am thankful YOU ARE MY MOTHER!

Happy Mother's Day 2012

Love, Lea





invisible threads

"You are to take it with you. I've fastened the end of it to the ring on your finger.' Irene took the ring.
'I can't see it there, grandmother.' she said.
'Feel - a little way from the ring - towards the cabinet,' said the old lady.
'Oh! I do feel it!' exclaimed the princess. 'But I can't SEE it,' she added, looking close to her out stretched hand.
'No. The thread is too fine for you to see it. You can only feel it.'"
- from The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald


One morning in late summer I was sitting at my desk and the Holy Spirit told me to look into the light outside the door. When I looked in just one particular way in the morning light I saw a beautiful secret strand....

I am so tempted every day to walk by sight.
I am so tempted to rage when I cannot measure with my flesh how God will guide my steps.
I come so close to missing marvels and beauty because I am not letting LIGHT frame my viewpoint.

The threads of the Creator are so fine, yet so unbreakable. His path and plans for me will NOT be thwarted.

come out.

"We can believe that God alone is our security and love is always worth the risk and there is no better investment than reaching out to someone and locking arms and unlocking your heart.
No better investment than finding the time for friendship and the courage to be real and the humility to say we’re sorry.
And distrust can cost us the very richest life of all and the price for being safe can be too expensive and friendship is the only thing that will show up at our funerals." Ann Voskamp

Lent.

"A furnace of renewal." - Buddy Odom

"Repentance is not behavior modification it is being thrown on the mercy of God." - Mike Kuhn

"Be different because I am different" - Sybil speaking of Jesus' words

"Abounding in Steadfast Love." - Nehemiah 9:17

"I trade these ashes in for beauty, and wear forgiveness like a crown." - Kathryn Scott

These are just a few of the ponderings since Ash Wednesday.

And the death of the Red Lion Amarylis.

Repentance and death and lament and crying out are hard. But they are meant to be a part of living that leads me to freedom and LIFE.

The question is posed to me, "Is my heart remote and detached from the movement of God in me?" by Buddy odom in his Lenten devotional.

I don't want my heart to be dead and detached. I want it to be ALIVE and VIBRANT and COLORFUL like I remember the Red Lion Amarylis was not so long ago.

I do not know what God has planned for this Lenten season.
I do not understand His ways that include both joy and destruction - spring and tsunamis.

But I know that I need Him. I know that He is my only HOPE. I know that his words can be trusted, "The Father who put them under my care is so much greater than the Destroyer and Thief." John 10 msg.

Today, His banner over me is LOVE.

fragrant oil, my costly perfume, my jar of nard