Happy New Year - 2014

2014... I don't know about you, but for me - for us in my household... we are ready for change!  We are hopeful for the New that this New Year offers and we are, as a family and as individuals, leaning in... leaning forward... saying, "Yes, Lord!" and anticipating what is just still around the corner and out of sight!  It's funny - maybe my OneWord from last year had more of an impact on me than I think sometimes.  For - as I type this out... I feel a rising giddyness for what lies ahead! 

2013 held a lot of Lasts for us.  Our Only graduated high school and that senior year alone holds so much change... we are unusually close - our little family of three... and we hung on tight through all the Ends together.  The year also held a lot of unforeseen struggles... some health issues, some relational strain, tighter budgets and bigger needs.  Still - it also awakened me to greater things... greater needs... and how every little bit adds up quick, and how we really can make a difference!  So as 2014 arrives... we are ready!  We want to continue to Speak Life, to Be Love, and to Shine On into the new year!

So, I started this little date years ago, where I grab a cup of coffee, a cozy spot, my Bible and a journal, and I meet with God on New Years Day.  I ask Him each year, on this - the first day, for a prophetic word or phrase as well as a book in the Bible that will be significant in the year to come.  He is faithful to meet me and to give me a glimpse!

The Phrase: The Maternal Heart of God

I know... I'm not quite sure, either? I just know that God began speaking this phrase to me several months ago, but I sort of shrugged it off. This morning, however, He spoke it loud and clear. 

"The maternal heart of God is arising... it is coming forth... it is pouring out!"

For several years, it seems He has been restoring the Father's Heart.  There has been revelation that God is good, that He can be trusted, that He is a good God... that His Father Heart is for us, is kind and loving (despite decades or centuries of thinking the Father's heart was angry, cruel even... lacking grace and compassion.)

But Love came down!  We have seen firsthand how the Heart of God is for us and not against us! We have seen men, anointed with the Father Heart of God, pour out His love and impact nations.  So when God first spoke the Maternal Heart of God, it seemed silly.  I had visions of Papa from The Shack and had Scriptures swirling around my head like "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is [a]neither male nor female..."  But what quickly followed was "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them..." and Jesus saying how He wanted to gather Jerusalem 'as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings...'

God created us - ALL of us - in His image and while I believe our true selves - our spirits - are not bound by body or defined by gender, I do believe our characteristics and personalities that are intertwined with being man or woman are all found within the heart of God. (We can be both masculine and feminine, no matter our gender.)

The very definition of Maternal is: 

"Pertaining to or typical of a mother; motherly."

The definition of Mother is:

 "a woman holding an authorative or responsible position similar to that of a mother; A creative source; Qualities attributed to a mother: as capacity to love; to create; to produce; to watch over, nourish, and protect."

If that doesn't sound like my God, then I don't know how else to define Him! (He is Father... and all of these things too!)

Personally, experiencing the Father's Heart over the last decade has transformed my life, my relationships, and my walk with God. I believe the missing puzzle piece to the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in Heaven is the realized and manifest Mother Heart of God.

I know... I don't fully understand it either. (To be honest, I asked for something else... something different... something easier to grasp.) But this year I believe we will see women rising up, gathering in, and releasing out... we will begin to experience, on a greater level, the maternal Love of God... creativity, nurturing, protecting... and a loving, something fierce!

I cannot wait to see how 2014 unfolds...

The Book:  1 Corinthians

The Book He highlighted to me this morning - for the coming year - is 1st Corinthians! 

Immediately, my mind went to Chapter 13, but the Letter in its' entirety is a mother's heart for her children! It is Paul laying out Truth! As Eugene Peterson describes it, it is:

"a classic of pastoral response: affectionate, firm, clear, and unswerving in the conviction that God among them, revealed in Jesus and present in his Holy Spirit, continued to be the central issue on their lives, regardless of how much of a mess they made of things."  (from Commentary in The Message Bible)

" I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ."

~1 Corinthians 1:4-7 NASB

"...So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.
Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut, Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything, Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best, Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end. ."

~ 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 The Message

So here we are... 2014 is here already and I pray that you will lean in with me... that you will dig in to the richness of the Word in 1 Corinthians (it really DOES cover everything your mother taught you!) and I pray that we will, together, experience a greater understanding and knowing and living under the wings of the Maternal Heart of God!

For me - what stirs up is my own Mama Heart... and I think back to when my Girlie (or any of 'my' littles) needed me... when they were sick, or hurting, or cornered... when they were in the wrong, or lost and confused, or headstrong and stubborn and I know that what God did in my heart for them was to uncover a love that was FIERCE... willing to fight for them... to nourish and nurture and set right again... to dream with and raise up and release them into all He has for them... and if that is what my own tainted Maternal heart could do... well, just imagine what His will accomplish!

Happy New Year!
Let us continue to:



P.S. To read about my OneWord365, click HERE and join the movement away from Resolutions, and into a changed life!