Consuming Belief

Consumed by

doing things to please other people. 

earning their favor. 

manipulating them into giving me what I need.

I misunderstood 

my relationship 

with God 

other people.

It's called codependency.

I believed that 

if I just did the right things, 

in the right order, 

at the right time 

with the right people...

if I could just get all of that right,

God would love and save me.

It doesn't work that way. 

I'm never going to

do all the right things 

in the right order 

at the right time 

with the right people 

all the time. 

Salvation is based on my faith and God's grace. 

Not 

how often I pray 

the things I do to earn His favor.

the opinions of other people.

I love my children based on our relationship.

Not how well they behave

Or what they accomplish

The things other people say about my children doesn’t affect my relationship with them. 

Compliments are nice

Criticism is an opportunity for improvement.

I know my children. I know who they are. Feedback from others doesn’t change what I know about them or who they are.

God's opinion of me doesn't change based on how others feel about me. 

He knows my heart. 

When someone complains about me, they are not giving Him new information. 

He knows my heart. 

He doesn’t believe falsehoods, or change His opinion based on theirs.

He knows my heart.

If God’s opinion and actions cannot be swayed by the compliments or criticisms of others, why should mine be? 

Manipulate

The knowledge to simply say what I felt, eluded me. 

Every word a manipulation to wrestle my needs from the clutches of what I believed were hands unwilling to relinquish them.

Fear drove my communication . . . 

of rejection.

of being unloved.

Fear that my unspoken beliefs would be confirmed as true. 

  of being weak. 

In denial of these fears. 

My life would be made up of a string of gossip, assumptions, judgment.

Sarcasm. 

Passive aggressiveness.

Shallowness.

Drama.

Relationships stale.

Fragile.

Painful.

Dysfunctional.

Confusing. 

And then . . . 

I learned that 

directness is a virtue. 

I can say what I feel.

How they respond is a reflection of them, not me. 

And . . . 

to say what I feel . . . I have to know what that is. 

So . . .  “think about what I am thinking about.” 

Honestly.

Deeply. 

“What is in a man’s heart flows from his lips”

Diseased communication comes from a diseased heart.

Change my heart, Lord. 

Pride to humility.

Fear to trust.

Approval seeking to God seeking.

Avoiding to peacemaking.

Until “the meditation of my heart and the words of my lips are pleasing in Your sight.”

How Does He Love Me?

How does He love me? 

Let me count the ways . . . 

highlighted clouds in gold,

rain while the sun shines,

Flowers regrown when sweet, eager boys pull “weeds”

Buys a home,

Sends me a friend,

Repairs what is broken.

Sweet freckle faces,

Laughter in the night,

Melodies and harmonies seeping through the walls when I think the fighting won’t end.

“Can I sit on your lap?”

Does my make up look okay?

Sweet words spoken when they think I don’t hear. 

Song of Solomon

Partners in life

Leah -  loved & chosen.

A place to grow,

Space to land

A village to raise our children. 

How does He love me? 

            I’m still counting the ways. 

In Bloom

He planted me here, designed every petal, leaf.

I measured myself against flowers,

didn't measure up.

Suffocated. Stamped out. Dead beneath the soil.

He dug me out, brushed me off and raised me back to life.

He's restoring every petal, reviving every

He rooted me here.

designed every petal,

predestined every leaf.

In love, he made me.

With purpose, intention.

But. . .

As I blossomed,

my blossom didn't seem as pretty as theirs.

So . . .,

consumed by comparison,

failing to measure up,

I began to wilt

Suffocated.

Stamped out.

Dead beneath the soil.

But. God.

Searched for me.

Found me.

Held me.

Spoke truth.

He rooted me here.

Designed every leaf.

Predestined every petal.

Would I trust Him?

Or trust MY OWN understanding?

I chose.

Him.

Every day.

One at a time.

He dug me out.

brushed me off.

raised me up.

And now,

I bask in the Son.

dance in the wind.

He rooted me here.

Designed Every leaf.

Predestined every petal.

Planted flowers close by to give me company, not a measuring stick.

Together. Not compared.

Shared.

Beauty compounded.

Grace magnified.

Life.

In bloom.

The Scale is Not God

Words on the page sear into my heart.

"If this part of you never changes, will you be okay? Do you want this more than you want God?"

The questions opened a wound I had long held tightly to . . . disordered thinking making lies seem true.

Like a monster whose power is lost in the light of day . . . 

the dark place in my soul holding onto my desire to lose weight too tightly shrieks in horror as the light envelopes it.

It started the day I received a newspaper clipping in the mail. My 15 year old eyes filled with tears as I read the ad for weight loss pills with anonymous handwriting spelling out, "Hannah, try this. It works!"

It continued when the scale wouldn't budge and my 30 year old heart felt control and the favor of God slipping from my fingers. I didn't eat for days, exercised too much. When I couldn't stand the hunger any longer I binged on anything I could get my hands on, purged it all and started the cycle all over. 

I slowly put back on all the weight I had lost, except for about 40lbs.

I mostly stopped purging in the traditional sense. But trying to diet and exercise often triggers the cycle for me. 

God has done so much for me. He has changed me in amazing ways, but I still struggle with food. 

In denial and unaware, I cried out to God, and sat in my car reading a testimony of God healing an eating disorder. A friend offered the book to me and I didn't really understand why, but I started reading anyway.

The woman who had been healed from the eating disorder asked two questions,

"If you stay the way you are right now, for the rest of your life, will you be okay?"

and

"Do you want to be skinny more than you want God?"

The questions immediately triggered emotion, and I knew God was working.

I allowed a deep wound in my soul to be exposed for the first time. I answered the questions begrudgingly, but honestly.

God opened the wound, and I examined it. I admitted for the first time how disordered my relationship with food and exercise has been. And how disordered my thinking still is. I don't full on starve myself, exercise excessively or the other ways I purged at my lowest point, but my thoughts are disordered, and that leads to disorder in my actions.

So I pray that God will help me to want him more than I want to be thin. I ask Him to help me believe that I am loved now, even in my obesity. And I praise Him for who He is, with the understanding that seeking Him with my whole heart is the goal...not being thin. The fruits of the Spirit are a by product of seeking Him...not a pre-requisite for finding Him.

And . . . I open MyFitnessPal, enter my food, eat all my calories for the day and remember who my God is, and that the scale is not it. 

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.