Rescued.

I'm not even supposed to be there. My dad wanted to call and tell us to stay home. Ice, sleet, rain, bipolar weather, the game changer? It's Sunday. The day we fellowship on purpose with brothers and sister's who believe and walk the same road. I want to be there, I don't want to miss. I live for the weekly bread that I get to share with my family. 

Two services in, I find myself outside trying yet again to capture Glory in a lens. 

I search. I comb my heart for anything He'd not want to stand next to.  

Stones. Frozen stones that beg me to tell the story that I don't even know myself.  A mini alter to Him? Stones of remembrance? For all I know some child probably was playing and these are stones for a battle, hidden while the enemy lurks about in nearness.

and I want to pick one up and hurl it at him, the enemy. I get so sick of his games. his lies, his tendency to dress things in light only to be uncovered and shown for the crap it really is. I hate that my heart is forced to hate anything so dark. 

My sweet mom used to tell us girls when we'd scream at each other in those years between, "You don't hate anything."  

Yes mom, yes I do.

I hate evil.

I hate what it does to families, to parents,  to churches, to marriages, to siblings, to businesses, to me.

I hate that it hits me when I least expect it and alters my thinking. I hate that it seems to win in those moments.  I hate that feeling of letting God down in the important moments. The moments that matter.

My heart is bare open before Him, the One that matters, and I'm getting a free facial from the ice that is pelting my skin.  "May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience." I step knee deep in a snow drift. 

The reality of my journey is interrupted by the Word from Colossians 1:11.  The Word that loves, the Word that overcame evil, so that we wouldn't have to carry it. Endurance and patience, they go together. They can't be separated. The evidence of maturity. The holding of Love so close that evil has no room to grow. The endurance and patience that holds on even when evil is lurking right around the next isle. 

"For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.. another verse from the same book hits me as I write. We are rescued. Evil has no hold on us... ever. 

This is what my brothers and sister were telling me when the words from their daily bread hit my ears this morning. Walking in the wee morning hours praying, reading and studying prayer, recording truth onto a CD so lives can be changed.. It's all rock throwing at evil... It rings true in my heart and I hear for the umpteenth time that learning to walk this road takes time and energy, a community to belong to,  and of course endurance and patience.

The world needs more rock throwers.