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?

40 Days Difference

Since I was a child, I believed that God created me to be a villain in His story.

When I finally realized that that probably wasn't true, I prayed for God to show me my gifts. To help me understand what He wanted from me. I felt stifled and trapped and restless. I can't even count all of the times I prayed that prayer.

In the last few months, He opened my eyes. He had already shown me my gifts. But I denied them. Suppressed them. I thought those things were among the long list of things that made me a villain.

A little over a month ago, I shared my mission statement and what I am praying for this year. I determined to pray this prayer for 40 days. I am not going to stop even though I have reached the first goal, but this is a point where I am looking back and rejoicing over where God has brought me from and where he's taking me. As a part of that process, I am sharing the first prayer I recorded in this specific prayer theme, and the last one.

(I have removed parts that referred to specific people, other than my immediate family.)

1. 1/13/2018

Father, I submit to you. I surrender. Father, please forgive me of my sinning. Please forgive me of my pride and unkindness. Father, please help me to focus on the things you want me to focus on. Please settle my heart and help me to keep my eyes on Jesus. I want to be who you want me to be. Please help me to know and believe that you love me, that Christ died for me, that you chose me so that I can serve in your Kingdom with confidence and purpose. Please fill me with your Spirit so full that your Spirit flows through me and into other people so that I can love others fully and purely and provoke them to a deeper, richer relationship with You and each other. Please make me reverent in behavior, to use wholesome language that builds up and edifies, please help me to not live as a slave to food or drink or anything else. Help me to teach what is good, to love my husband and children, to be self controlled, pure, working at home, kind and submissive. Father, please help me to invest in my children. Father, I have failed to foster closeness with them, please help me to do that. Please help me to change to promote that.  Father, please show me how to love my husband and children in a way that they can receive it and feel it in the most effective way. Father, I am not a good listener to my kids. I am a lazy parent. I give in to what my selfishness wants instead of what would serve them. I have been a selfish mother. I am sorry. Please forgive me. Please make me altruistic. Please make me focused on You and not myself so that I can love my husband and children fully and purely. Father, I thank you so much for my home. I thank you for my husband and children. Thank you for Michael. Thank you for Caleb. Thank you for Nathaniel. Thank you for Lilla. Thank you for Elisabeth. Thank you for Uriah. Please help me to love each of them in the individual way that they will receive it best and most efficiently. Please make me kind. Thank you for mine and Michaels jobs. Thank you for our church family. Thank you for bringing me here. Father, I thank you for music. Thank you books. Thank you for our fireplace and our Narnia lamppost. Father. You are so good. I trust you. Thank you for what you have done for me. In Jesus name I pray, amen.

 

40.) 02/21/2018

Father, I trust you. I am being still because I know that you are God. I am strong and courageous and I am not frightened or dismayed because I know that you are with me where ever I go. You are real and I matter to you and you reward those who diligently seek you. I believe you. I believe that you are good and faithful. I believe that your wisdom is so far above my own that I can’t comprehend it. I believe you. I trust you. Please help me to believe you and trust you more. Father thank you! Thank you for what you have done for me! Thank you for Michael and Caleb and Nathaniel and Lilla and Elisabeth and Uriah. Thank you for our home. Thank you for not leaving me where I was, sick and sinful and lost. Father you are so good. I am overwhelmed by it. I am overwhelmed by the proof I see that you love me. I’m sorry that I sin. I am sorry for my pride and selfishness and codependency and judgmental-ism and jealousy. Please forgive me. Father, please change my heart. Please give me a heart like David’s. Please crucify anything in me that is not of you. Father, please help me to find my identity securely in YOU so that I can serve in your kingdom with purpose and confidence. Please fill me so full of your spirit that I am overflowing with the fruit of Your Spirit so that I can love purely and fully. Father, please allow me to provoke others to have a deeper and richer relationship with you and with each other. Father please make me reverent. Please make every word I say wholesome. Please make my words edifying and building up to everyone who hears them. Father, please make me a slave to you and nothing else. Father, I struggle with food. Please change my heart. Thank you for what you have been doing in me in regard to food. Thank you for accountability and friends who pray for me. Father, please make me teach what is good. Please show me how to love my husband and children and fill me with love for them. Father please make me self controlled, pure, a worker at home, kind and submissive. And please give me wisdom and discernment. Father, I surrender to you. I trust that you are going to show me how you want me to use the gifts you’ve given me. Please help me to be patient. I don’t want to be patient. I don’t want to wait, but please help me to wait patiently. Please give me supernatural contentment and joy in learning and growing in the meantime. Father, I would like to work in ministry full-time. I am asking you to provide an opportunity. Father, please make me courageous. Please open my eyes. If you have already shown me and I dismissed it at as an impossibility, please show me that. Please give me eyes to see. I’m sorry that I didn’t trust you. I do now. I know that you didn’t make a mistake or create me because you needed a villain in your story. Thank you Father. You are good and amazing and I love you. I want to be wholly consumed by you. Please consume me!! In Jesus name, amen.

I am meditating and thinking through the changes. And thanking God for where He's brought me from, where I am now, and where He is going to take me. He is good!!!!!!

 

What are you praying for? What is God doing in your life? What do you want Him to do?

 

 

Asking for Signs

I looked at what I believed was evidence. The tell-tale information that said I am not good enough. I don't belong here.

I started to listen to those lies. Should I be doing this? If I were supposed to be doing this, wouldn't __________ be happening? Wouldn't it look like ______?

And I asked God to give me a sign. Some direction. anything.

I thought of Gideon.

An angel (that he didn't know was an angel until later in the conversation) showed up and told him to go to battle for Israel. From human eyes and mind, he was a starving farmer. To God, he was a "mighty warrior". Not because he could bench press 500 hundred pounds or kill a hundred men with a pocket knife. A "mighty warrior" because God declared him one.

He asked for a sign.

Over and over he asked for reassurance that he was doing what God wanted him to do. And each time God gave it to him.

And then he asked again. Over and over and over God reassured him. And over and over and over he needed another sign.

I do the same thing. 

Over and over and over. I doubt. I listen to the lies. I believe them. And then I call out to God for a sign.

I look at the things I can see with my eyes. I see the people. I compare. I decide what it should look like with my own understanding. And when it doesn't, I doubt.

I lean on my own understanding of the world and people and myself. I only see things from a carnal perspective, I don't see into the spiritual realm. I don't see angels standing ready to fight my battles or the ways God is working it all for my  good and His glory.

But I know my God. I know he is faithful. I know He is good.

So, I took Gideon as a sign. :) 

A sign to trust God. To say yes, and trust that He will give me what I need to follow through. To trust in the Lord with all of my heart and not lean on my own understanding. In all my ways to acknowledge Him and depend on Him to make my paths straight.