My Psalm 128

Your path for me is the map to my life's passion. Joy marking each command You have given me. I do not need to pack a bag filled with instructions and reinforcements. You placed in my heart the route to each destination and the strength to continue moving. As I follow You I find my true peace and joy. Your way holds no dead ends or detours, only opportunities for faith. Lord, move my feet to bless each place I pass. May Your glory be the dust that trails behind my feet. I know the work you have set for me. The orders are engraved on my heart. So I praise You God and begin.

My Psalm 127

Woman Carrying Basket of Pomegranetes
by Edwun Longsden Long

All I do apart from you is worthless. Why spend all day attempting something You have not blessed. It would only bring aggravation and leave me exhausted. Lord offer me Your peace at the end of the day. May I rest in what you have completed with my hands.  May each activity of my life shine with Your light. I pray the basket I lay at your feet be filled with the fruit of those who have been encouraged. It is Your message given from my lips. I yearn to help lift Your children closer to you and further away from the dry place of the world. May the rust of shame never reside on the hearts You hold in Your palm.

My Psalm 126

The Sower by Garret Walker

When I look back on my life I can see how you fought for me. I cherish the joy each battle has brought to this journey. My life is a series of moments better than the most impossible dreams and priceless hallelujahs written on my heart. Now when in the midst of trouble or caught in the grasp of doubt, may I rest in the victories of the past and the hope of those to come. I know that Your hand fashioned each step of this journey before I took my first breath. Even when my eyes are filled with tears, You promise songs of joyful praise. May the seeds of repentance planted along my life's path bring forth a harvest of forgiveness in Your sweet time. My prayer to You Father, as I rest in Your nest make me one who in Your will is joyfully blessed.

My Psalm 125

Confident and immovable are the mountains, remaining where you placed them decade after decade.

Regardless of the weather which crashes against their summits they hold steady.

God, Your words are mountains. They surround me with a ring of truth and protection.

Even when the world pelts me with opinions and judgements, solid and steadfast are Your promises.

The enemy may control this emotional world but is banished from Your children's place in eternity.

May that peace stand firm in my desire to make known Your Holy Name.

My Psalm 124

Here I sit dressed in the same old rags as yesterday. Still poking at the ashes I made of my life. How dirty, what filth. How I want to go to the Ball like all the other girls. But I can't go dressed like this? Then the Lord delivered my engraved invitation. You Lord, heard my concerns and gently tended to my needs. You clothed me in the richest gown. I stand with the pile of soot behind me, a reminder of a past burned beyond recognition. You keep no evidence. I made it to the Ball just as my arrival is announced...."Tiffany Page Wylie Conn, daughter to the King of the Most High". Escorted on your arm of transformation midnight is no longer my warden for Your waltz never ends.

My Psalm 123

Embrace by Mari Aaronsouth

Have mercy Lord on me your child. Daily I deal with judgement from the world. I need more of you, My King. Help me surrendar allowing a song to fill my heart. Close my eyes to the things that suround me and my focus to you, My King. As each notes plays to my soul I feel you draw near. Crawling into your lap and I am home. A treasured place in your arms on the throne, My King There I am simply your daughter filling up with the peace only you can bring. No more noise from the world only the beat of my heart as it slows to match Yours, my King. Give me a mission, send me out into Your Kingdom. Permit me to serve you. May I be your faithful servant. Eyes on you I am now ready, willing and relying on You, My King.

My Psalm 122

Let us go into the house of the Lord. A phase both bitter and sweet tell the tales of  my church past and present. From moments of heavenly praise on borrowed time to the whispers of my sin growing in the walls. But I stand at the gate resting on the promises in your city of peace. Lord, please carry me through the door and across the  threshold like Your bride. For I can not stay away any longer. Let me go into the house of the Lord. May I be the change I long to see in your house. May the peace I crave be set in motion with sound of my steps forward. May this city of your hurting children see your life within the bricks and plaster. I feel the rich history relived as each members shares past fellowship. I feel joy watching the games children play between the pews. I hear a sweet melody as mature laughter tangles with the giggles of youth. Life knitted with peace as we worship in your house . I rejoiced when they said to me, Let us go into the house of the Lord!

My Psalm 121

Two Egg Nest by Cari Humphry

I look around for help, who will be there?
My help does not come from the world but from the Lord,
the one who created the heaven and the earth.
He is a great and mighty God both full of power and gentleness.
He is not a cage in which you are kept but a nest where you make a home.
He knows where you are and where you will be and He never rests in His pursuit of you.
He will keep your feet moving at His tempo. The world can not touch you.
God will make sure His creation survives.

My Psalm 120

Lord I am alone and I long for you,
save me from my need to speak and from words that hurt.
You know my voice and see that my heart longs to heal,
but oh how the tounge gets twisted.
You can judge fully and quickly with a punishment we deserve.
Pity my weakness to stay put, my laziness to camp in a bitter place.
My vacation in routine is over.
I must walk in today even if those around me hold tight to yesterday.

The Psalms of Ascent

For the next few posts I will be sharing with you the words God has spoken to my heart through the Psalms of Ascent. I am participating in a bible study where we are looking into these 15 Psalms. (Psalm 120-Psalm 134) Each week we read the Psalm, examine each verse, ask questions, share things that stand out to us and finally pray about each one. In this prayer time we are to place ourselves in a humble position; either on our knees or face down on the floor. We can talk to God. We can sing to Him. We can be silent. Most importantly we are to listen to Him speak to us through each Psalm. The idea is to allow the words of the ancient text to come alive today in our hearts and speak into our lives the words God desires to share. So please enjoy how these Psalms of Ascent speak to me, walking faithfully.

Woman Behold thy Son.

There is something about a mom. For me my mom has been an honest sounding board, a shoulder to cry on and my number one fan. She took care of me before she could hold me in her arms.  She doctored my cuts and bruises growing up. In my teens and early 20’s I am sure she prayed for a manual or a return policy! There were days I thought she was a nosey nag, an old fashioned Sandra Dee and she did not understand me at all. But, regardless of how we have felt for each other on any given day I could not give her away. Our families belong to us; good or bad. Here in John chapter 19 verse 26 and 27 Jesus is transforming Mary’s maternal relationship.

Suffering His last hours nailed to a cross Jesus could not bear the thought of His mother being left widowed and alone. This was the woman who had such strong faith she carried God’s child and cared from Him until His time came to do the Father’s will. In Jesus’ words to Mary, His mother and John, the disciple He loved; the two were set apart and offered to each other. Behold your son. Before today he was simply a disciple, see him differently now. Behold your mother. Before today she was my mother but now you are to honor her in my name as if she was your own. They were joined together, a new family.   At the foot of the cross the Savior was extending the family as we understand it from mere physical mother and son to a spiritual relationship. 

But there was something else happening in that very same moment. Something Mary, John, nor even we could see. But Jesus saw it. He knew with those very words he also spoke healing into another woman’s heart and transformed her shattered motherhood.

Five years ago in the seventh pew on the left at an Ash Wednesday Service I walked the Via Dolorosa with my Savior. Every last thing I had done and left undone; all I had said and left unsaid I saw nailed to that tree. How could this man freely endure my penalty? How could I watch the pain my life had lead Him to bear? Deep into every pore of my rigid heart I felt the pain and anguish He suffered because of me. He endured all those years of my repeated disappointing choices. Every drop of blood on His body, each bead of sweat on His brow represented a point on the map of my sinful past. Yet as they rolled down His beaten face and puddled on the dusty ground my past was wiped clean, erased.

At the cross all those generations ago and a few years ago within these walls Jesus transformed my aborted motherhood. Thinking of the daughter He adored with abundant and unworthy forgiveness He suffered my sins to reconcile the brokenness in my life.  My failed maternal relationship was recognized, presented to my heart and the difficult healing process took its first baby steps.  Woman, behold your son. I had to become acquainted with the life He created and I ended in my womb. Son, behold your mother.  I had a son who will honor me one day in heaven, as his mother. We were joined together, a new family.   On the cross my Savior was extending the family from a mere physical mother and son to a spiritual healed and whole relationship.  What I had fractured into a million pieces with my selfish decision Jesus gathered up in His nail pierced hands and fashioned mercy, grace  and forgiveness from soot and ashes.

I tell you tonight Jesus longs to do that very same thing for you. He cries out on the cross for you to behold your sin in the light of His love and sacrifice. He longs to wash you of all the dirt and grime sin leaves behind and make your face radiant with His light. It does not matter what you have done or how unloved you think you are today. He desires to lift your head and speak, Behold my child your new family. So what now? Do we attempt to pick back up all the wounds and pain, thumbing our nose at His gift? Do we insist we have control of our lives? Do we think we can do a better job? Do we refuse to see the pain our sin has produced on the cross? How do we begin to say thank you?

I was able to share this message God gave me on the recent Good Friday Service. We had a very moving service where seven of us shared our thoughts on the seven final phrases uttered by Jesus on the cross. I continue to be amazed at how He uses the missteps I have made to sing of the glory He can bring to others lives. I hope this simply begins my Thank you not to Him.