Work in Progress

I know what you might be thinking. You might be looking at me thinking of all the work God hasn’t done in me.

You might see my extra pounds. You might notice that I don’t always accept compliments with grace. You might notice that I can be snotty. You may look at my choice of church and think I made the wrong one out of wrong motives.

You may know any number of things about me and think that this God thing isn’t really working out for me. 

But you know what the biggest thing God has done for me is? Shown me that regardless of what you or anybody else sees in me, He sees Jesus. And that’s what really matters. 

Going through a step study and being an involved member at Celebrate Recovery doesn’t mean that I’m perfect or that I think I am. It means that every.stinkin.day. I have to surrender my life and will to Christ’s care and control. 

It means that every.stinkin.day. I have to remember that what I want and the way I want it may not be God’s plan for me. But I also remember that in the will of God and living out His plan for me is exactly where I want to be. 

I am going to tell you a secret. I think God has a plan for me. Maybe that’s a character defect, I don’t know. I’ve read several articles that talk about how people believing God has a specific plan for them, a work for them to specifically do is arrogant and the root problem of today’s world. I’m willing to accept that that may be the case. But I do believe he has a plan for me. 

Over and over and over again I’ve done what I thought was stepping out in faith, only to realize that I had pushed my own agenda. Or maybe just taken a step along the path of God’s plan for me...but the result of that one particular action isn’t the thing God ultimately has planned for me. 

I keep trying to guess what God’s plan is and hurry toward it, but I’m learning to be patient. To lean into God’s timeline and rest in Him. I’m coming to understand that maybe that’s been His plan all along. Maybe all of the stops and detours along the way are getting me ready...if not for something in this life...then for the next one. 

Yes. I want to know His plan for me. If He dropped it in my lap today, I would jump for joy. But I trust that He is going to bring it about in His time and in His infinite wisdom. And for HIS glory, and not my own. 

Because HIS glory is the point, isn’t it? Not mine or so people can admire me. It’s so people can look at the wreckage I created and praise God for bringing me out of it. 

He’s not done yet. But He’s working. Yes, I’m overweight, can’t take a compliment, let my feelings guide my responses and make unwise decisions. But He’s working. 

And I am resting in that knowledge and assurance.

Heart Judging

The moment had come. I would have to share the assumptions I had made. The judgments I inflicted on her unknowing heart. 

Every time she contacted me, I judged her motives for doing so. 

“She’s only talking to me because . . . “

The thing is, my judgment and assumptions seemed justified and I didn’t see them as assumptions and judgments. Her motives seemed clear to me. 

But the very real truth is that I absolutely was making assumptions about her motives, and that became clear when I communicated honestly. She shared her heart and my eyes were opened to my judgments.

I have no right to make assumptions about other people’s motives, no matter how clear they seem. 

If you don’t talk to me at church, it is not okay to assume you are a snob.

If you don’t offer me a seat, I have no right to assume you know how much my feet hurt - and that your lack of care is a reflection of your character. 

Jesus says that the words I say flow from my heart. It works in reverse as well. What I don’t say is also a reflection of my heart. 

You are a beloved, chosen child of God just as likely to receive the grace of God as I am. If it is imperative for me to believe those things about me, it is also imperative for me to believe them about you. And treat you with the same grace I expect to receive, by asking when I have doubts about your motives...and communicating openly, honestly, lovingly and directly.

Don't Stop Believing

I lived in the central valley of California when I learned about Celebrate Recovery and Spiritual Formation counseling in Irving, TX. 

Could God have grown me in the Central Valley of CA? You betcha! He did. In a million ways. 

You know in the story of Abraham. God called Abraham to leave his home and family and travel somewhere else that God promised to show him. But Abraham didn’t leave his homeland one day and arrive at the new place the next. It was a journey of years. It was a journey of discovery and growth and mistakes and learning just how faithful God is.

God is good and powerful and he can work where ever and with whatever I have. I don’t need a specific set of parameters. I don’t need to hear sermons from super holy Bible scholars exclusively or be among spiritual giant, older women to grow. God can grow me right where I am. Regardless of the depth and meatiness of the sermons I hear. Or the spiritual maturity of the older women I spend time with. 

Him growing me has nothing to do with any of that. 

But sometimes He calls me to go on a journey. To leave where I’m standing and go to another place that he wants to show me.  

Four and a half years ago, He did just that. 

I’m feeling the stirring in my heart of another journey that He’s taking me on. Maybe not a physical one, but definitely a spiritual one. A fun one. A miracle one. 

I can’t wait to see the place He wants to show me.

Frost Vs. Nixon

I have always enjoyed history. I became a bit disillusioned though when I realized that the history I had been taught as truth, was just one person's perspective, and that there were as many versions of what happened as there are people to tell them. And every person believes their version is the truth and all the others are bunk. I became a little bit cynical.

I have grown to love it again though. I love studying people. What motivates them, what drives them, the general context of their decisions. I've learned to view the events and people less judgmentally, realizing that sometimes I've heard stories about a person that may have shaped my view of events or people. I may be making assumptions that are not true. So, I love hearing the same story from as many different perspectives as possible. And usually, I gain compassion and can see the point of view of almost everyone involved. I may not agree with the decisions they made, but I have compassion for them. Bad behavior is not excused, but I can lay down my judgment and negative feelings for the PERSON while still disagreeing with their actions. 

And that's why I love history. It teaches me compassion. It teaches me to reserve judgment most of the time. But if I need to form an opinion, to see through attempts to bias or manipulate me and to get to the heart of the matter and form an independent decision. 

I get on kicks of the parts of history that I'm interested in. Lately, I've been reading and watching documentaries about Richard Nixon.

Celebrate Recovery has done a lot to help me be compassionate as well. To react to others the way I would want to be reacted to. To listen without reacting or judging. To trust God to work in other people's lives without me beating them over the head. Not excusing or condoning or accepting sin...but being compassionate to the person. Because I know where I've been. I know I still struggle. So viewing them through the lens that I wish to be viewed through helps me to love them anyway.

This week, after watching speeches that Richard Nixon gave, watching  documentaries and reading everything I could find, I watched David Frost interview Nixon. The real one...not the dramatized version from a view years ago.

I found it profoundly interesting.

One of the things that struck me was how often David Frost allowed Nixon to keep talking when he wasn't answering the question or the answer seemed utterly ridiculous or convoluted. David Frost just sat there and listened, blank faced most of the time. Frost would present him with transcripts of conversations from the Oval Office that seemed damning, but Nixon found some way to explain it. 

I'm not sure I could have sat there and listened without reacting or interrupting. But David Frost did.

At one point, Nixon went on and on and on and on. I am positive I could not have been as patient as David Frost was ! But there he sat, blank faced and silent. Letting President Nixon process through it.

And because he did that, President Nixon came the closest I've ever known him to come to admitting that he did anything wrong during the Watergate scandal. “I let the American people down" came out of his mouth.

I've been thinking about this moment ever since. What if David Frost had interrupted him or talked over him? We may have never gotten that.

There is value in remaining silent. In not reacting. Not a head nod, not an eye roll, not a nose scrunch or brow furrow. Not concocting a reply. Just. Listening.

It's something we learn at CR. And something I'm still working on. But it made me think...how often could progress be made infinitely more quickly if we just let people process through things? Even if we think what they are saying is stupid? If we just quiet our thoughts, stop trying to fix, stop judging and defending, and just...listen. Sometimes people just need to wade through the mud of denial to get to the breakthrough. 

I don't have to police every word, call out every ridiculous thought. It's okay to just remain silent and love people anyway. To let them go on and on and on and on. Or give a convoluted answer. It's not my job to fix people. There is someone whose job that is. His name is God. And you and I are not him. 

Anyway, that's one place I saw God this week.

Thanks for letting me share.

Being a Leader

Being a leader, in any capacity, is not about me, my knowledge or what I have to offer. God doesn’t need any of that. If I have learned nothing else from reading God’s word, it’s that He doesn’t ever choose people based on their ability or knowledge. Or any of the other things that humans choose people based on. 

More than one of the people that God chose to use in the Old Testament protested His choice. Moses said he couldn’t speak well. Barak insisted that Deborah go with him. The list goes on.  

I love the story of Gideon. Gideon was an Israelite in the time of the Judges. God had led Barak and Deborah to victory and Israel experienced 40 years of peace. But they eventually stopped following God and God allowed the Midianites to cause them a lot of grief. For seven years they destroyed the Israelites crops. They didn’t even eat them...they just destroyed them. They didn’t want them for themselves, they just didn’t want the Israelites to have them. 

When the Israelites FINALLY called out to the Lord, he sent a prophet and he said, “I brought you out of Egypt, the land of slavery. I saved you from the Egyptians and from all those who were against you. I forced the Canaanites out of their land and gave it to you...Then I said to you, “I am the Lord your God. Live in the land of the Amorites but do not worship their gods.” But you did not obey me.” 

Have you ever judged the fickleness of the Israelites? I certainly have. I have thought that if I had seen the waters parted and if he had given me a land of my own, I would be sooo full of faith. But, God has done some pretty amazing things for me. And I still complain when something in my life doesn’t work out exactly like I would like it to. I cry out and ask God “why me?!” and I doubt His love for me. I doubt His goodness. And I get myself into a scrape, and then I cry out to him and expect Him to get me out of the jam I’m in as a result of my own sinful attitude and actions.

This is where Gideon enters. He is in his barn separating the wheat from the chaff...in the winepress. He was hiding from the Midianites. An angel of the Lord comes and sits under a tree and says, “The Lord is with you mighty warrior!” (keep in mind, WE know this was an angel but Gideon didn’t yet).

This scene makes me laugh! Gideon is a starving farmer. He was probably pretty skinny...and as unlike a mighty warrior as he could get. If he weren’t so beaten down and discouraged, I bet he would have laughed. But instead he says, “if God is with us, why are we having so much trouble? Where are the miracles our ancestors told us he did when the Lord brought them out of Egypt? But now he has left us and has handed us over to the Midianites.”

Gideon was a starving farmer God sent an angel to tell him to go and save the people of Israel. The angel told him that fighting the whole Midianite army would be like fighting one man. Before Gideon would go he asked God repeatedly for signs to reassure him that God had indeed told him to do this and that God would be with him. Every time God gave him the sign he asked for and Gideon led the Israelites in victory. 

God uses people. He sees things that I don’t see, even about myself. I think God uses the people that He uses so that when His task is accomplished, there is no doubt in anyone’s mind...even the person he used to do it...who actually did it. 

God also uses people that OTHER people don’t want to be used or don’t expect. Think about the first two kings of Israel. Saul was good looking, he was someone people looked up to...he was probably voted class president. But he had a lot of confidence in HIMSELF, he was prideful and didn’t wait for Lord. He went ahead and did things that were not his things to do. God left eventually left him. He ended his life consumed by jealousy. 

Now contrast that with David, the second king. When God rejected Saul, he sent Samuel to the house of Jesse to anoint the next king. Jesse brought his sons before Samuel and one by one God rejected them all as His anointed. At the end Samuel asked if Jesse had any more sons. Jesse sent for David. Jesse hadn’t even bothered to bring David in before this. He was so stinkin sure that David was NOT  the one who would be chosen that he didn’t even bother to give him as an option...even though Samuel had told him to bring all of His sons. David was overlooked by his father, rejected by his brothers, laughed at by a giant.

When Saul finally died, there were people who thought his son should be the king instead of David. It took 7 years and countless deaths as the result of battle before David was made king over all of Israel. People rejected the person that God had anointed in lieu of their own choice, and as a result people died! And God’s will was still accomplished.

God’s ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are above our own. He doesn’t always use the people we think He should or the ones we would choose if the choice were ours. But you know what? His will is always done. 

I hope you go away from here filled with faith. Faith that if God has called you to something...that He is going to accomplish it, regardless of the reasons you think he shouldn’t. And faith that if God has called a different person than the one you would have chosen....that He knows what He is doing and He is going to work it out for your good.

If you are waiting for a specific leader to be leading before you go to share group...trust that God will use the person who IS leading to accomplish his will in your life. If you are waiting for a specific leader to be leading before you join a step study. Stop it. Trust that God is going to work through the people who ARE leading to accomplish his will in your life. Because He will. 

God’s will will be done. He will work. My only job is to show up and be a vessel. What He accomplishes is not to my credit. And what is not accomplished is not to my credit either.

Faith and Doubt

What if Moses obeyed the burning bush and the people were never freed? 

I did a brave thing. I thought He wanted me to. 

But the answer was no. 

Was it His voice? Or my own? 

Was His plan an exercise in courage, or a figment of my imagination? 

I don’t know. I’m still waiting for the answer. 

But while I wait . . . 

Samuel was God’s prophet, but not everyone listened. 

Moses obeyed the bush but it took 10 plagues and a parted sea for Pharaoh to truly let the people go. 

Abraham waited 15 years, when it already seemed impossible. 

Jacob worked 7 years for the wrong wife. 

Ruth moved countries, risked her reputation and waited for Boaz’s reply.

David was anointed and hunted by the man he would replace.

Job waited while his friends paraded by trying to fix and blaming him for his plight.

The Hebrews received the promise of a Messiah and didn’t recognize Him when He came. 

They all waited. Days, years, lifetimes, generations.

They wondered too. 

I can wonder and still have faith. 

I can be disappointed and still be a follower. 

I can question and still trust. 

So I do . . .

Wonder, but have faith.

Be disappointed, and be a follower.

Question, and still trust.

Parenting: The Uphill

Being pregnant and/or breastfeeding and then mothering 5 toddlers/small children was hard.

And I thought I had made it through all those hard days as a mother . . . and that while the teen years would likely be a challenge, that making it through those hard, first ten years as a mother was the uphill part of parenting. And everything else would be like making it to the top of the hill and riding down the other side.

I was wrong.

Because then it became time to sit in the passenger seat while these humans whose bottoms I wiped and whose throw up I caught . . . learn to operate a moving vehicle. A time when I place my life into the hands of people who can barely walk through a room without losing or breaking something. Persons who, not THAT long ago, couldn't manage to wipe their behinds well enough to avoid having skid marks in their underwear. 

But so far, I've survived to tell the tale. With only a few extra gray hairs but mostly none the worse for wear. 

The Acceptance Well

I was 8 or 9, and the name "dog" was the word used most often to describe me by the peers I spent my days with.

We sat in the car. I verbalized my desire to be "cooler" and his reply was a sneer at my clothes and "well you need to get better clothes".

So I believed that the road to acceptance was paved by the clothes I wore.

Through other words and actions I came to believe that my body had to look a certain way in order to be accepted.

And then I had to say the right things,
do the right things.
Say yes to every request.
Keep unpopular opinions, beliefs and parts of me to myself.

So, one by one I swapped out me for some politically correct Stepford Wife. I would let a little bit of myself out to play to test the waters, and then quickly remove it and replace it with something either . . . blank . . . neutral . . . or whatever I believed would be the least offensive thing.

I spent 10 years of my marriage watching super hero movies and claiming to enjoy them.

I didn't. And I don't.

But this is a defining characteristic of my life. He also didn't hear me sing for the first 5 years of our marriage.

Ultimately, it all comes down to me rejecting myself. Because if I accepted myself, it wouldn't matter what anyone else said or implied about the way I am.

This rejection of myself has lead to me seeking out acceptance from others. But the thing is, if I don't have the acceptance already...no amount of getting it from other people will fill the well where my self acceptance goes.

So I'm asking myself a lot of questions. Like, is writing a way that I seek acceptance? Or is it truly something I'm called to do? Do I believe what I say or do I say the things that I know will be acceptable to the people I want to be accepted by? Where have I buried my identity for a more acceptable one?

I don't have definitive answers to all of those things. I'm still soul searching.

I know that I'm supposed to have all of this figured out before I write about it, I've read all the things too. But I'm not Lysa Terkheurst or any of those other women, and I'm not trying to be. I'm just a real lady dealing with real things.

Take it. or leave it. It's up to you.

Choosing to Believe

“We see the world as WE are, not as it IS.”

I used to read scripture as a list of shoulds and wishes for what God desired the world to be. I would have told you that I believed in absolute truth, and that the Bible contains it. In practice? I believed it was an ideal to reach for, not absolute truth.

Oh, I believed that some things were absolute truth, like that God created the world and Jesus died on the cross. But when Paul said, “for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God”...not so much.

Or when Jesus said, “if you continue as my disciples then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free,” not then either. And the scriptures that tell me how much God loves me? Fagetaboutit!

I would pray, begging for God to make me die (to my flesh in the spiritual sense of Col 3) and for him to hide my life in Christ. I longed to know truth, even though I was continuing as His disciple. I wanted him to love me, but I believed I was too flawed.

I didn’t believe scripture. I wasn’t living in reality as defined by the Creator of it.

The thing is, truth doesn’t change based on whether I believe it, or how I feel about it. God’s character does not change based on what I believe about Him. He is good, whether I believe He is or not.

The Bible is the revelation of truth. Absolute truth. And not just the creation story and Jesus birth, life, death and resurrection. God’s revelation of who we are, and how He feels about us is also absolute truth. It isn’t subject to our emotions and beliefs.

When Paul says, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” he didn’t mean ‘there SHOULD be no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ He’s not revealing how it COULD be. He is revealing what is real. Reality. Absolute truth.

When Paul says, “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure.” He is telling us what is real. Reality. Absolute truth.

If I do not believe this, if I do not live this. I do not really believe that God’s word is absolute truth.

Thief

Sure, there are moments when I compare and the comparison steals my joy because I don't have what they have.

They're skinnier.
A better cook.
A more loving mom.

All of the ways that someone else might be "better" than me. I am reduced to "less than".

but in all of this comparing, there HAVE to be moments when I do measure up. When the verdict isn't less than, but more than. Because what motivation would I have to play a game that I always lose?

There are people that I have labeled as "weird". People whose opinion I don't ask for because I don't take them seriously. People who I avoid sitting with at lunch. Or people that I feel the need to fix.

 I am not advocating for trophies for everyone. I am advocating for seeing people through the eyes of Jesus instead of a Soccer coach or a college admissions board. Or a mean girl.

Comparison is wrong in both contexts.

So, in all of this "finding my identity in Christ", I am committing to finding yours there too.

 
Not because of what you believe, or how alike we are or any other thing about you.

 
God's promise that I am fearfully and wonderfully made and his workmanship, are promises to you too. And if I am committed to living in His promises for me, I have to acknowledge and live in His promises for you too.

 
 The former is not truly possible without the latter.

 

 

Coming in from the Cold

I peered through my windshield at the monsoon outside. Cold painted fingers, nose. Assault of wind and rain and cold stood between me and the front door of the oasis of warmth I knew awaited me.

And still, I couldn't bring myself to open the car door and step out into the wind and rain.

I was already cold. The car heater fogs up the windows, impairs visibility...so I hadn't turned it on. The freezing temperature outside, consumed the inside as well.

I filled my lungs with air, held it there, opened the door.

Feet consumed by frigid waters. I walked to the door, swung it open and stepped inside. And wondered why I had taken so long to make the journey.

Warmth immediately consumed me. Glow of fire. People I love gathered around laughing and singing and . . . unphased by the storm raging outside. Each had their own lively story of how they came to be there, warm and unaffected by the storm. Basking in the pleasantness of temperature and dry clothes. We laughed at each others stories as we gathered around the fire.

I looked around and pondered the stark contrast of this beautiful moment with how it felt to be in the cold. Alone and willing to live in the cold to avoid the wind and rain, even if it meant being cold for a longer amount of time.

It reminded me of coming to God. How good it feels to bask in His warmth and light. And how long I spent willing to live in the cold.

God's love feels like being in a warm oasis when there's a blizzard outside. Coming to Him feels like walking in from a storm, to fire, friends, warm blanket, bowl of soup. Living in his will is the utter contentment of sitting in front of a fire, utterly untouched by the cold and wind and rain billowing outside. The cold and wind and rain still rage, but there is really nothing they can do to touch me. Their power is gone.

When I come to God, the storms don't stop. The difference is, they lose their power over me. The worst they can do to me isn't comparable to the good God does for me.

Nothing can separate me from the love of God. Not death, nor life. Not angels or demons. Not the present or future. Nothing in all of creation.

Being in God's warmth and light is an amazing place to be.

Are you there? Or are you negotiating a life in the cold?