Hey there tribe!!  I had the opportunity to share yesterday at my church.  To share hope and my story which reveals the power of hope to get us through any season in life.  You know I love to teach, I used to run to the desk when my teacher would leave and teach my class.  That teacher didn't appreciate it.  Below you will find my notes.  Of course, I shared my story intertwined with my notes.  Actually didn't use my notes, but still hit the high points (I hope).  Forgive typos and the way I write for my messages, I know how goofy it is but it is just me and how I talk.  Hope it encourages you and you find something from the Lord that speaks to your heart.  Happy hope filled day!!  I love you tons.  

Let me tell you a little about me before we get started….

Readers Digest of myself…if you could read my story(you can read a lot of it at debbiehornsby.com…all of it… Let me tell you a quick little bit about me……ADHD tied in my chair by teacher……artist, writer, ………pastor……….HEART(my story)…Surviving the Sh*t Storms of Life

PRAY

So today we are talking about hope, something a know a little about…I have been hopeless in my life and I have learned to build hope and live in hope so that I wasn’t taken out by the trials of life. 

 The apostle Paul wrote in several places about what hope leads to or adds to: patience, courage, and joy. It makes us stable, and we are saved in hope. It is one of the three things which last forever: faith, hope, and love.

Hope is the miracle grow to our faith, hope is what gives us the ability to believe in the unseen!

As believers we have the greatest hope, not just for the future but for living our daily lives. 

Sometimes we get this hope confused with hope for heaven….we also have hope for today in the land of the living.

Hope is the greatest tool for fighting doubt, fear and depression. 

I have survived the worst tragedy I think you can experience, the death of a child.  The fear, doubt and depression that wanted to take me out was monumental…

Over 20 years of building a foundation of hope is what brought me through it.  Not in some sticky sweet touch from God but in a daily bloody fight of trying hard to hold unto hope…It wasn’t pretty…(Share story)

It was however necessary in order to survive….every word I had treasured was called into question and I had to make a decision to live in hope, to believe that it would get better. 

You see without hope we make short sighted decisions for the moment, think jacob and esau…Esau who traded his birthright for some food…This guy really was HANGRY.

With hope we are like Abraham willing to obey God to the point of sacrificing his son because he had the hope of what God would do!

We all need to grow our hope when in the good seasons…so that we don’t fall in the hard seasons.

Life is built around seasons…

Sometimes seasons don’t seem fruitful but it may be a season of growing deeper roots.   Yay!!! FOR ROOTS

I always had the faith of a mustard seed…I rarely saw mountains moved, not for lack of trying but I did see God take me right through the mountain…and that is what my hope was always in….HE will get to me to the other side…somehow, someway

Hope waxes and wanes….none of us are immune…There is no condemnation when we find ourselves struggling to live in hope, it just means we must seek help from people that have hope to share.  We need the overflow of hope from others. 

All I can share with you is what has worked for me, what I have learned through the word, my life and through my failures. 

This is the verse we will mostly stay on this morning. 

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, ⁴ and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. ⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, ⁹ for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

#1

Born into a living hope: (Salvation)

These three things last forever…faith, hope and love.

·       Build a foundation---knowledge, prayer and reflection and pass it on

·       Faith comes through hearing…

·       The character of God…He didn’t withhold his own son…sovereign, omnipotent, ominipresent,

·       My hope comes from HIM….stir up the hope already deposited in you

·      Don’t get spiritual amnesia…remember all He has done for you since you were born into this living hope.  You can always have hope when you look at the past. (art journal)

#2

Suffer grief in all kinds of trial: Expectations….God is with us in the fire think the lions den...(example)

Psalm 31:24

Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.

Psalm 9:18

But God will never forget the needy; the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

Romans 8:28 We know…all things…

·       Lean into hope

·       Be intentional

·       Remember—don’t suddenly get spiritual amnesia

·       Trust—go back to the knowledge of who God is

·       Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the lord.  Psalm 31:24

·       All things work together Romans 8:28 

·       There is always a purpose in the pain/redemption of pain

#3

Praise through the pain-- Result in praise, glory and honor: 

Power of Encounter to renew hope! To get a word you can hang onto…Shower story….  We need an encounter...praise brings heaven down....

As for me I will always have hope, I will praise you more and more Psalm 71:14

Job 13:15 though you slay me…praising God after Justin died

Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him;(yet will I praise him)
    I will surely^[a] defend my ways to his face. (argue my case)

This is when you are empowered to make the most impact!

People are captivated by the Jesus in you that they see in the worst of times.

Allow hope to shine, speak hope, draw from the well of what you have seen and heard about the goodness of God…Don’t quit praising God…Just as you praise Him in the good things (that is so easy) will you praise him in the difficulties. 

I don’t want to sound trite, it is not easy.  It is an act of your will to stop the cycle of downward spiral that we can all get into but hope is the answer….hope leads upward…reminding us to look in faith, to live in love even when the cup we are drinking from is sour.  You will live in joy and sometimes that joy will get mixed in with sorrow but you are equipped with all you need to burn the pain out with love, hope and faith.  

The goal is to live in hope!!!

MAY THE GOD OF HOPE FILL YOU WITH ALL JOY AND PEACE AS YOU TRUST IN HIM, SO THAT YOU MAY OVERFLOW WITH HOPE BY THE POWER OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.  ROMANS 15:13

the way out is the way in

hope

there is always a way out

always a way in

there is no beginning

no end

strength is found

not gained

hope is constant

fear is defeated

glory abounds

trials rage on

grace received

emotions raw

desperation an agent

change its purpose

peace sought

battled for 

peace delivered

received

love abounds

the storm travels on

She is every woman, she is me.

WE are all survivors of heartache and brokenness but there is always a sweet redemption of that pain.  Things may never be the same, but they will be better if we just turn our hearts towards the healer and trust Him through the pain.  

Debbie Hornsby Being Authentic & Living Wide Open

Overthinking, keeping my mouth shut and living in hope!

Just the other day I was thinking, or I should say overthinking(you know me) about this last year.  It has been a while since the second greatest tragedy in my life.  One long, traumatic stretch of time passing, sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly.  In the beginning it was so painful to see happy couples, I kind of wanted to walk up and tell them not to get to comfortable that it would probably all fall apart one day. That seemed like it would be a bummer so I kept my mouth shut. Every once in a while I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs that the world was a cruel horrible place, I wanted to grab happy people and shake them and tell them to wake up and recognize the terrifying truth, there is no happy formula and you will eventually get your heart broken.  Every once in a while, these thoughts rumbled mercilessly in my mind.

In the end, I didn't say that to anyone....well okay there was this one person but for the most part I did good.

Theses thoughts clouded my judgement, cast fear into my heart, and strangled my voice...who I was seemed lost forever and yet....

Learning, growing, teaching and preaching, yep all that stuff came back up.  It took a few months, okay maybe five, for things to come back but who's counting. Somewhere in me there was always hope, seeds that had been planted for years, but it was still hard to pray, hard to hear God, everything was just so damn hard in the beginning.

So now here I am living in Lubbock(almost a year now), going to my new church(love it), a new job and finding the rhythm of a new life. I've been intentional about taking care of my heart and finding the hope, joy and laughter again.  It hasn't been easy, by nature we tend to focus on what we don't have instead of what we do have. However, I made new friends and started serving in my church.  I filled my life with fun music, inspiring people, online messages, old friends and new friends, books and I found myself hopeful again.  Not for the old, but for the new life and the new me.

I don't quite know this new me.  Sometimes she seems broken and fragile and sometimes she seems determined and feisty.  This new me is different, for sure.  I'm easier and less hurried but I am also much more sensitive and contemplative.  I am naive and yet seasoned, tainted and yet hopeful....sometimes still confused but nothing like the last years of my other life.  My other life that was filled with doubt and confusion.  Now my confusion only rest in my own head not in my circumstances.

In the midst of all the transition hope has shown up, not because of a new man or a great salary or a big change in my circumstances.  It came because it has always been there.  Always in my heart. What had gotten me through losing a child was also getting me through this valley of despair.  Where every headline was heartache, where I couldn't see past the pain.  There was God always whispering in my ear, His love, His faithfulness and my worthiness of His love.  Yes, in the darkest of moments that worthiness issue still rears its ugly head (damn it straight to hell).  Yes, I am still cussing a bit but now I don't condemn myself...I don't even think that will continue forever but if it does, oh well.  

Hope crept out of the corners of my soul and into my mind.  It grew and grew and before I knew it, life just looked better and brighter.  It isn't always rainbows and unicorns, this Thanksgiving was hard.  Everything is so different, and there is one that I shall always miss.  I just tried to keep a count of things I am thankful for running through my mind.  The truth is, I am thankful for so much and an attitude of gratitude is always the answer to the paralyzing grip of yesterday.

So today I thank God for where He has brought me, for His constant companionship, for the pieces he is putting back together and for the freedom to experience His love in a new way; a truly unconditional love.  I suppose that is the greatest gift in all of this, a deeper understanding of His love.  You see I have grown and at the same time diminished.  Turns out growing and humility(diminishing of self) are tied pretty closely together.

I know it may seem strange that someone could grow in Christ while living a bit of what I would have considered a bit of a slacker Christian life.  I am not at church every time the doors open anymore, I don't live by a particular set of rules but more by what I think Jesus would do, I try to love people well and I love myself better than I probably ever have.  I cry easily, apologize profusely, speak authentically, I talk to God in front of my fireplace or on my patio and sometimes I cuss. Sometimes when I cuss I am surprised and I laugh out loud; not that I said it, but that my God still adores me in spite of what I said.   That is the beauty in the brokenness.  I am finding a new balance and in the process I may swing a little too far one way or another but I am confident that God who began a good work in me will be faithful to complete it and so I live in HOPE and that hope continues to multiply.
Thanks for loving me.

YOU are my people!

Thank you, Glennon Doyle Melton for this great truth put to paper!

         

I am a crazy, loud, wonderful(that is the Jesus part) mess.  Full of faith and hope, laughter and joy, with a mind that won't quit.  Every part of my life that can be planned, is planned. It is just all those unexpected things that make me wildly unstable for a few terrifying minutes (okay hours maybe even days).   I am often afraid of the reckless passion I feel and try desperately to be rational.  Not my strong suit, I am fiercely devoted to those I love and wildly in love with most human beings which makes me vulnerable and unpredictable.  I told someone recently that I want to dress like a gypsy and dress professional(you can see the conflict here).  I am evolving and changing.  It is so weird. I am fifty one and feel like I am shedding my cocoon and becoming someone new.  

The essence of who I am remains the same but somehow the "old me" and the "church me" have collided and perhaps they should have been "one life" all along, but this "new me" I like her a lot better. Yep, I think I can love this "new me".  I still want you to love me, but if you don't that's okay.  I realize that some people are just not going to be my people.  I want to surround myself with the people that celebrate my particular personality of laughter and life.  You don't have to be like me (I appreciate diversity), but you do have to enjoy the "new me".   Yes, I can be quiet and sweet but I can also be loud and teeter on the edge of wild.  Don't dare me to do something, you will be sorry.  I could say I am brave but I am not sure that is the right word, I just do things afraid.  I thought I was brave, until I realized I am not. To quote a song, "I'm brave but I'm chicken sh*t".

Sometimes I am embarrassed to tell the story of how I ended up here, in Lubbock, Texas. Reconnecting with beautiful old friends requires some sort of synapses.   Talk about mortifying.  I just look people in the face and for shock value speak it totally straight.  Sure we laugh about it, because I can't miss an opportunity to crack some type of joke about it.  I think one day it could be a weird comedy routine.  

Turns out I am not the only woman to be cheated on and lied to for most of their marriage.  I am in some amazing company, wonderful women that are struggling through the after affects of broken dreams and broken vows.  It's not just marriages, my friends have had real struggles.  They laugh about it and we share our stories and we believe in redemption for that really crappy stuff and we have hope.  We each have stories and my tribe, my women friends well, we stare into the face of adversity and scream...."I will be better, my life will be better, I am beautiful and strong and nothing will beat me for very long"  Resilient, that is what we are.  We struggle and we fight for our health, our children, a new life, whatever the struggle happens to be and we bounce back.  Sometimes when necessary we help one another bounce back. 

Often in the middle of explaining my crazy story I find someone with the sweetest heart and the kindest face and I think I am looking into the face of God.  Seriously, I see God in people, encouraging  and empathetic people.  I refuse to be shamed out of sharing my story, I will not be denied these special encounters with people that love well and demonstrate the kindness of God to me.  

Now as the old collides with the new, as fresh faith(less religion, more freedom) and tons of grace are poured out on me by the loveliest people, I realize I am not defined by what happened to me but rather refined by it.  Not in a perfection way, that ship has sailed on without me. By refined I mean that I am better than before. 

I am not perfect, actually the hard work of seeming perfect is really over.  I give up, I quit, I throw in the towel.  I am beautifully imperfect.  I make mistakes and own them.  I say too much, I say too little, I am too loud, I want to eat cookie dough all the time, no joke; breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I am not the best at anything I do, I am not even sure I am second in anything.  I fail all the time, as a mother, a friend, even as an employee.  I am trying really, but sometimes my own stuff gets in the way.  Like someone just dropped a mountain in front of me to climb.  (I think I can, I think I can)I try not to let condemnation come on me(practice, practice, practice).  Chant with me these freeing words, "I am not perfect!" I blatantly share my flaws and try to limit expectations. 

Turns out I love Jesus more now..... I think, because I am not trying to prove I am worthy of His love.  I am just trying to live in a place of grace and space to be as authentic as I possibly can.   Not trying to make others happy, fix anyone just trying to find the true, new me and love others well.  By the way, I wear a bikini now and on occasion throw down a curse word.  This freedom feels pretty good.  

And that's the story of how it all collided one day(okay it was a year) from "old me" mixed with "church me" to "new me" with a little help from my friends(tribe).

You brave friends make me long for the best me, the most authentic me and to just pour out love on you like you have done for me.  In you I see hope.  Keep up the good work!

Debbie xoxo

Proof that the pain passes!

Some day I will string it all together, the tidbits I wrote during the second greatest tragedy of my life. It will all make sense one day, but in the meantime I celebrate living and moving on from these sentences.  Yes, they are a part of me but they no longer describe me or define me.  That makes me happy, really happy.

I could always hear a whisper I couldn't quite make out, confusion that I couldn't sort out.
Like a nuclear bomb had exploded in my life, my community, my family, my heart.
Ravaged by shame and pain.
Hostage to silence.
He is close to the broken hearted, so close he made me breathe when I couldn't on my own.
Those things he said that first day curled up in my brain like spiders spinning webs of doubt and fear in my mind.
It was more than a marriage, it was a life just gone in an instant.
Your sorrow is an indication of how deeply you loved.
The loss was unbearable, as if someone had sucked everything out of my spirit and just left it on the floor to be stepped on.

Don't lose hope friends, it turns around!  Redemption is guaranteed!!

And the writing becomes happier, stronger and braver.......

Losing everything and finding myself.
Hope was always there, hiding behind the pain.
Sometimes you have to burn bridges in order to stop yourself from crossing them again.
The best lessons don't happen in a happiness bubble.  They come in the dirt and muck of a messy, difficult life.
I will honor God no matter what has happened to me.
There is happiness to be found beyond the rubble of what was.
I am not recreating a life, I am finding a new one.
Love is a force to be reckoned with.
I find myself with an unfailing spirit, even though bruised and scarred I still believe in hope and love.
I refuse to build a wall around my heart, it is as open as ever.
And so it is true....God will always make a way.

Yep, one of these days friends it will be in the book but until then be encouraged.  He can turns our pain into praise, our fears into faith, our doubts into hope, our broken hearts into beautiful mosaics and our tears into strength.

Love my people, you are the best.

Debbie

Nobody tells you.....

Nobody tells you, how it will feel.  

How having a baby grow in your stomach will change everything.  How love will fill your heart and overflow into your life because of these little alien looking creatures that you helped create. 

You just can believe how a new life changes everything about your own life, until you live it.  That first baby of mine he saved my life.  He stopped my life in it's tracks and that was a good thing. Everything became about bringing him into this earth safe and healthy.

No one can really make you understand how it feels the first time you feel the flutter of life and your heart nearly burst.  I can remember it like it was yesterday, laying on my bed with my hands on my stomach marveling at the tiny little movements I could feel.  A butterfly doing flips in my stomach.  How I cried and said, that I would do anything for this little life.

Nobody can explain the love you feel the first time you lay eyes on your baby.  The sudden overwhelming love I felt each time I delivered one of my boys.  Staring into their little faces and wondering how such an outpouring of love could even come from my heart.  I had never known love like that, I had heard of it but couldn't understand it until they were born. Then I worried about when the next one comes along, could I have that much more love for the next one. It is such a supernatural experience, that kind of love.  I felt it for each one, an overwhelming love like no other.  I didn't just love them, they were a part of me. I loved them in that first moment of seeing them with a passion that was instant and burning.  My heart cried out, I will always love and protect you and I always have.  At least as much as humanly possible. 

I loved kissing boo boo's and bath time, loved playing cars for hours out on the grass, loved when each of my boys said they wanted to marry me when they grew up, those were the sweetest of times. Watching races and football games, putting my cheer-leading skills to work.  It was not always easy, tons of broken bones and scary nights waiting to hear their cars pull up.  There was fighting, screaming and crying but it was all rooted in love, in protection.  I could have done better, I learned as I went along.  I always said Justin was my guinea pig.  I never quit loving them with the most ferocious of loves.  I would cry myself to sleep in prayer for them, battling for their safety.  Pleading God's mercy over their lives as they struggled to become men.  They all made a few wrong turns, my love never quit.  Boundaries had to be set; groundings and cars taken away.  Nobody tells you how difficult it will be, how that love will be tested, how those babies will leave you and begin their own lives.  How they don't want to marry you, they don't even want you to hug them.  Nobody tells you how they may break your heart, or make you so proud you can't stand it and often both.  Nobody can tell you because when they are babies you wouldn't believe it.  You would say as I so often did, my kids will be different.  They are different but not without their own bumps and trials, not without some heartache.  Your grace level for parents gets a true upheaval when your own become teenagers. 

When you look into their tiny little baby faces you think you will be able to protect them from the heartache of a broken world.  Then you will hold them when they are grown and crying and your heart will break into a thousand little pieces because you can't change the pain they are feeling. 

You can't.  You just can't.  So you continue to love them with an unending love that says I will pray for you forever, I will be your mother always and I will fight for you till the day I die, I will always love you more!

Being a mother is the greatest love and joy I have ever felt, its a roller coaster of hope and fear, frustration and laughter, it gets upside down and sideways but you learn and you grow and you never, ever stop loving them with a ferocious love that they will never understand until they have children of their own.   

Mothers Day will forever be hard for me, because one of my boys will not call or send a card, he won't be there for church.  He will always be in our hearts, but there will be none of the "greatest hugs ever" from the oldest boy.  But, it also will be joy filled because being a mother never ends and it is my greatest joy and there are still boys to hug and boys to love and one day grandchildren(we live in hope)!

Motherhood is worth every tear cried and every cheer shouted.  I would do it all again for the joy of the journey. 

Love you my sweet friends, thanks for reading.

Jacob, Justin and Luke...I love you forever, like you for always, as long as I'm living my babies you'll be.

My Heart is Full

I ran across this picture, just the other day.  It was painted way before my life turned upside down and inside out.  I thought my heart was full.  As I look back from a different vantage point I am beginning to see that perhaps my life was full, but not my heart.  Perhaps, I had lived with such a full life that it had kept me from living with a full heart.  Maybe I equated a full life with a full heart.

 I really believe Jesus longs for us to allow Him to fill us and then everything else is the overflow of that goodness.  How easy it is for us to complicate that design.  To build our self worth on what we do rather than who's we are.  To fill our lives with good things, even God things but allow them to crowd out His voice and His perfect work for our lives.

I am not perfect (far from it) and sometimes my heart feels empty and hollow.  The pains of life, the barrenness of a busy life drain my heart from full to empty.  I alone hold responsibility for the condition of my heart.  I hold unto the fact that empty is only how I feel, not the reality.   That He never leaves me, but sometimes I become so filled with other things He is squeezed into a tight space in my heart instead of having free reign.  The God of the universe fills my spirit and He alone is exactly what I long for.  I may drown Him out sometimes with the busyness of life, sometimes I may even think I need something else to fill my heart such as friends, money, work or whatever (you could just fill in the blank with whatever your "filler" is).  However, He is always there waiting for me to slow down and prioritize Him as the most important thing.

Looking back I can see that years of serving the body had created a heart that focused on loving His people sometimes more than loving the creator.  Don't get me wrong, I always loved God but sometimes the people and the work became more important. It was never intentional, it was just a slow drifting.  Like floating in the ocean and all the sudden realizing you are far from shore.  We all sometimes need a reminder to be first full of Him and then we can pour out of that abundance unto those we love.

I am learning this lesson as one who has been stripped of a great deal of identity and now I am finding my true identity.  I thought I had already figured it out, but alas I still am working it out. I am hopeful for what this new season brings and expectant for the future. My joy isn't tethered to who likes me, how well I do at my job or even a man.  That's right I said it, I don't need a man. Whaaaat, some of my old time friends are gasping and surprised by this, and to be honest I vacillate around this issue. I always settle back into this truth, I need a heart full of Jesus nothing else will fit that deep need.  Anything I use to try to fill that, is just a prop for the real thing.

So today on this journey, I am finding my way to back to joy and it comes from having my heart full of Jesus.  Why do I seem to forget this intermittently in my life?  Just human I suppose.

Love to all my human friends, thanks for celebrating who I am and who I am becoming.  One day, we won't be human we will be heavenly and won't that be awesome!!

Debbie

Dance like you just don't care!

Sometimes you just have to be brave and dance 

like you just don't care!

I have been thinking about this whole shake it off thing..... 

There has been a whole lot of shaking.  I looked at this video today and all I could think was, God surely has a sense of humor.  He talks to me in my own language, the language of fun and laughter. 

Laughter does a heart good.  

 So here is some laughter from me....it's funny no matter how you look at it.  At the end of the day I choose to believe that God was right in the middle of everything that happened.  This idea of shaking it off has become my battle cry, when it feels like it is out of control I go back to that....and so do my friends.  
                                    Remember Debbie, shake it off! (I have great friends)
So I laugh more than ever since the bomb dropped, I am full of hope for the future as I look at life from the perspective of eternity. I want to be the best me, possible.  We can't let our circumstances or the pain of the past determine out future.  God's purposes and plans will not be denied if we are willing to be obedient and keep shaking it off.  Let's stay away from the desert and march on together towards the promise land. We are stronger than we think, God is bigger than any problem and Jesus is enough to bring joy regardless of circumstances.  Be encouraged friends.  
Love my tribe!

click the link below to watch the video....get ready to laugh!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwRp8ggVfJU2bEVna3dkUmdKN1U/view?usp=sharing