Serving Together in Marriage {Deeply Rooted Magazine}

There are so many things I love about Valentine’s Day. Making our own Valentine’s cards and crafts, baking cupcakes or cookies with red hearts on top, sharing in our children’s joy and all their little Valentine’s cards and treats that they give and receive from friends, and just taking time to make the day a family and friends celebration of love, ultimately of God’s extravagant love for His people. These are some of the ways we love to celebrate.

As I think about Valentine’s Day, I also reflect on the love I share with my husband and how God has worked in and through our marriage. Today I am sharing some of my heart about marriage, ministry and serving together over on Deeply Rooted Magazine.

Marriage is a picture of Christ and His covenant relationship with the Church. It is an image of God’s intentions in His redemptive plan of salvation. The Church is Christ’s Bride here on Earth with a mission to go out into the world to share the gospel and disciple believers (Mark 16:15). Will not God who has designed marriage to reflect these things, strengthen our marriages when we serve in a way that portrays the function of this image? One way my husband and I have strengthened our marriage is by serving together. -Deeply Rooted Magazine

As I look back over the years, the miles we’ve traveled and the opportunities we’ve had to serve alongside one another for God’s glory, my heart is content with joy. This is God’s work that He prepared for us to enjoy together. The picture above is one memory I have of a trip we took to Papalote, Mexico a few years ago. My husband was to be teaching at a Bible Institute and we had the wonderful opportunity of hearing about the work God is doing in that part of the world. This painting, hanging in the home of a missionary couple held a real life story of God’s faithfulness in reaching the lost in a nearby village. Hearing and experiencing these stories of the gospel reaching the nations is a treasure we share together.

One of the great outcomes of serving together is the shared joy of seeing fruit produced from mutual service in others’ lives. A shared experience of storing up spiritual treasures in Heaven brings an eternal perspective to the purpose of your marriage. Some of the greatest fruit we have seen serving together in ministry has been to witness lives changed, hearts comforted and people discipled. –Deeply Rooted Magazine

You can read the rest of this post at Deeply Rooted Magazine.

With the love of Christ,
Jen

Lilias Trotter: Soul Into Blossom {Deeply Rooted Magazine}

Over a year ago, I wrote a piece describing my journey of delight in learning about and researching the life and work of missionary and artist, Lilias Trotter.

When I first met missionary and artist, Lilias Trotter, it was in the pages of a book given to me by a dear friend who is now, herself, a missionary to Ireland. This book, Faithful Women and their Extraordinary God, is written by Noel Piper and is a collection of short stories about the lives of five women and how God used them in their unique circumstances, giftings, and callings. With a love for Christian biographies, I dove into this book ten years ago to learn the life stories of these five women. One of them was Lilias.” Read the rest of the post here.

When I write, I pray that God will use my writing to bless the people He wants to bless with my words. Like dandelion seeds blown from the palm of my hand, those seeds go out into the world and I pray the Lord will cause those seeds to land on the soil He desires. He also determines how He will cause the growth. We have only to be faithful with the gifts He has given us to steward.

A year later, during our summer trip to the Pacific Northwest, I was invited to write an article for Deeply Rooted Magazine on the life and work of Lilias Trotter. At the time, I was researching even more about her through Miriam Huffman Rockness’ biography, A Passion for the Impossible. At the beginning of the summer, I asked the Lord to guide me to the books He wanted me to read this summer. As we packed for our summer in the Northwest, I picked up this biography and stuffed it into my backpack along with several children’s books, journals, and my Bible.

When asked to write this piece, I was overjoyed to see how the Lord orchestrated all these threads into one woven tapestry, and to have the opportunity to reach so many women around the world in an effort to continue to share Lilias’ legacy of art and ministry in Northern Africa. Below is an excerpt from this biographical piece.

When the Lord calls a soul to Himself, there is an unmistakable dying that occurs at the same time as there is a supernatural giving of life into union with Christ. At this point of receiving that resurrection life and power, the new child of God begins a life-long journey of hearing the continuous call in God’s Word, through the Holy Spirit, to die daily to sin and live to righteousness (1 Peter 2:24). That call of God demands a response. The question then becomes, how will you respond to this Christ-life dwelling within you? This is an account of a young woman who responded to that call with great sacrifice and with a passion for the impossible.

The young Lily became a woman with a way of seeing in regards to spiritual matters, the natural world, and human relationships. Much of this can be attributed to her mother and father, Isabella and Alexander Trotter. The Trotters were an influential and economically prosperous family in mid 19th century England. A dynamic couple, they each possessed a love of nature, adventure, travel and most importantly a love for Christ. In their travels, Lilias’ mother was known for her prayers and evangelism both in England and across the ocean in the New World of America. Their fascination with various subjects, peoples and cultures, prepared Lilias for her future ministry working with people who lived in very different circumstances and contexts than she was accustomed to.

Lilias grew up during an era of celebrated writers, theologians, poets, and artists including the likes of George MacDonald, Bishop Wilberforce, Christina Rossetti and famed art critic, John Ruskin. Perhaps the most spiritually influential of these voices were those of Dwight L. Moody and Hannah Whitall Smith whose writings, devotional material, and evangelistic meetings became for Lilias a source of discipleship that would develop the inward journey of her soul to a deep and abiding surrender to God, and propel her outward as she prepared for a life of serving others.

-Jennifer Harris, Soul Into Blossom: The Life and Work of Lilias Trotter, Deeply Rooted Magazine – Issue 12 The Calling, pg 37

To read the rest of this biographical sketch and savor the artistic talent on display in Lilias’ watercolor paintings, you can purchase Issue 12 – The Calling at Deeply Rooted Magazine.

With joy and delight,
Jen

Planting Seeds of Wisdom {Deeply Rooted Magazine}

Stepping off the weary airplane that had been my cocoon for the twelve-hour flight from Glasgow to Vancouver, I scrambled through the immigration line with overstuffed luggage and declaration card in hand. My eyes scanned the bustling airport for the customs booth where I could declare the precious item I was bringing back. I told the officers that I had one package of sunflower seeds from Scotland, but it would take a while for me to find them in my luggage. I knew my parents would be waiting for me just through the double doors. It was hard to leave my home away from home that I had grown to love, but I was eager to see them and settle back into the familiar. At long last, the officers said I could keep my small package of seeds. I was thrilled. I heaved my backpack onto my shoulders. And after five months of serving a church on the Ayrshire coast where the sea waves meet the heather that grows wild across rolling green hills, I was finally home. And I had brought seeds for planting.

I still remember one of the first songs I wrote as a young child… it had something to do with rainbows and a suitcase, I think. Stories about Ricky Raccoon and his woodland friends are still tucked away in a box somewhere. With a love for words, story, poetry and song, I have always loved to write.

This past winter, one of my friends who also loves words and language and is by far, in my opinion, one of the greatest writers I have personally ever read and who inspires me with every piece she composes, asked me if I’d like to contribute a piece to the magazine for which she is editor. Now if that’s not a run-on sentence, I don’t know what is. So I’d like to introduce those who are so gracious to read my essays (blog posts), to my dear friend, Thea at Little Book, Big Story. She is also my personal editor!

It was a joy to receive her invitation and I may have done a happy dance, as we writers like to call it! I set to work this past winter to write a piece on planting seeds of wisdom in our children’s hearts. My husband helped me to carve time into our winter break here at seminary. With my favorite chocolate and wine in hand, candles lit, and a soundtrack of ocean waves to get me into the mindset of preparing this little article, I set to work.

When we talk about planting “seeds” of wisdom in children, we are dealing with beginnings, a genesis of sorts. Seeds simply have the potential and the capacity for growth. They are not the end result. These seeds need to be given an environment in which to thrive so that they can grow into maturity.

I am not a perfect parent, and I am not at all the wisest amongst women. I am faced by my brokenness and need for Jesus every day. It is why I pray for new mercy every morning, that I may live a life that is faithful and honoring to Christ, that gives Him glory and brings Him delight.

But God does not wait for His children to arrive at a super-spiritual, incredibly wise point in our lives before He starts to use us. He simply desires for us to be willing to be used and He takes us as we are in our weakness, and then uses us the way He desires. He touches the lives He wants to touch with our willingness to serve Him, and then gives us sheer joy in being used by Him, every day, in big ways and small ways.

Undergirding all our efforts to be faithful to God’s command to train up our children in his holy ways, we must de- pend upon the Holy Spirit and be diligent in prayer. It is on our knees in prayer where the most work is done. Years ago, when our children were babies and toddlers, a friend told me of how there were many nights when she would stay awake in prayer, interceding for the souls of her children. That has stayed with me all these years and through many sleepless nights, I have asked the Lord to work mightily in the hearts of my children. Just like the man in Luke 11:5–8 who persistently knocks on his friend’s door in the middle of the night, asking for bread, God wants us to be persistent in prayer.

It was a joy to write this piece and to share a bit of what I’ve learned in these early years of parenting, things I’ve learned from God’s Word, from my parents, from friends, and  authors of long ago.

To read the rest of the article, you can pick up a copy of Deeply Rooted Magazine in two ways, either a hard copy of the magazine which reads like a coffee table book with beautifully designed layouts on thick matte paper, a collection of readings and inspiration to point you and others to Christ, or you can purchase the digital copy.

Deeply Rooted Magazine exists to glorify God in womanhood. Thank you, Thea Rosenburg and Dianne Jago for this opportunity!

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.” (James 3:17)