"From Martha's Heart"
~updated 01-24-2010~
Heart to Heart
From Martha
It is hard to believe that it has been 5 months since we were together at Touching Hearts. I have thought of you often and prayed that the Lord will bless you and keep you in his tender care. I pray that you enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving and Christmas with family and friends. I have enjoyed some very blessed time with my family during these past months. I greatly missed my mom this first Thanksgiving and Christmas since she went to be with the Lord. She was very much present with me as I decorated with some of her ornaments, prepared dishes from her recipes, baked Ed’s much requested cake in her cake pans, and laughed over past shopping trips seeking to find the “perfect” $10 gift. We shared some special old traditions and made some new spiritual markers for our family. There was certainly a blend of wonderful past memories and traditions and establishing new experiences and traditions for our family.
Speaking of the new…may I wish you a Happy New Year! Pause……What do we really mean when we say that? Curious, I set out to ponder the words and love what I found. I am praying that the next 365 days of your life will be joyous, blessed, favored by our Lord. Have you ever looked at the meaning of the word New?…coming or occurring afresh; fresh or unused; different and better; other than the former or old. How exciting can that be? We have stepped across the line of an old, past decade into a brand new decade. The Lord has blessed us and kept us for such a time as this. Let’s not miss what He has for us by longing to cling to the old in any way. Oh, we share many wonderful memories, experiences of the past that are meshed into our lives, forever a part of us, but we have to reach for the new that God has with great expectancy.
God is always about the new. Thank you God for sending Jesus to give new life, not just to repair and patch up my old one. Thank you that each day your loving-kindness and faithfulness is new. Thank you that “in Christ” all things are made new and the old is past away. Thank you that as old doors close, new ones open in front of us. After these 5 months of sabbatical, I am convinced more than ever before that God is creating new wine for new wineskins. This time has more meaning than I ever knew the day that I announced we were shutting down for at least a month. I know that He is preparing new wineskins to carry new wine. There is much preparation to be done in me. He is able and I am willing.
"No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins." (Lk.5:36-38)
“It is easier to fall back to what is familiar and comfortable, and justify that, rather than launch out into a life guided not by laws and regulations but led by the Voice of the Spirit of God. The two are opposites, the old and the new. You cannot combine them without destroying both.” Online Commentary
I wanted to honor you by letting you know what is going on with me and with Touching Hearts. The season of waiting continues. No longer am I waiting for the word, “Ok, start Touching Hearts, again.” Instead I am waiting for Him to reshape me and remake me into a flexible, pliable, clean, willing wineskin, prepared to carry His new wine. I wait to hear, “May I fill you with my new wine?”
Until then, my dear ones, I am staying put. There is no move on His part to open the doors so I will continue to be shut away with Him and seek to only join in what the Father is doing. I pray that you long for the same in your life. I pray that you are resting in Him, seeking Him with all your heart and allowing Him to prepare you for what He has planned for your life. I pray that in 2010 you will allow Him to shape you into His vessel of glory. I encourage you to move into 2010 focused on Him. Don’t just wait for Touching Hearts, because I truly do not know His plan. Let’s lay it down and praise Him for all He allowed us to experience together in the past months and years. You are still at the foot of the cross and I bless you as you pursue His leading in your life. I love you and I thank God for you, your love and prayers for me.
“Lord, fill us full again with your New Wine. Help us to contain it and grow with it, rather than lose it through our stubbornness and inflexibility. Help me, Lord, to recognize the powerful new ways you want to work in my own life and not miss it. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.”
With my deepest love,
Martha
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Martha Wilson (founder)