Think Pink

Narrowing

I feel like maybe I am being a drama queen when I say that last year was a difficult year.  Outwardly, it would seem that all was well even moving smoothly.  We suffered no major catastrophes.  Began living in a wonderful home.  The girls are growing and becoming more independent daily.  What could possibly have happened that made the year so internally difficult for me.  Today, I got answers, as God will always reveal if only we wait long enough.  This is what was provided to me today:

...The only way we can be of use to God is to let him take us through the crooks and crannies of our character.  It is astounding how ignorant we are of ourselves!   We do not know envy when we see it, or laziness or pride.  Jesus reveals to us all that this body has been harboring before his grace can begin to work.  How many of us have learned to look with courage?...

...As long as we are not quite sure that we are unworthy, God will keep narrowing us until He gets us alone.  Wherever there is any element of pride or of conceit Jesus cannot expound upon a thing.  He will take us through the disappointment of a wounded pride of intellect, through disappointment of heart.  He will reveal inordinate affections--things over which we never thought He would have to get us alone. 

                                        ------Oswald Chambers

I would love to say today that I have learned to look with courage, but I admit that is not so.  However, I am looking.  It is this narrowing process against which I have railed and fought and run from and which I have finally turned to face head on.  It hurts.  It isn't fun exploring the dark places in me, and all the wrong things I think, and believe and have relied upon for so long.  All those not within my own heart cannot see it is happening, but it is happening.  And it must continue to happen alone, with only the barest form of me existing.  If I were thin skinned perhaps this peeling away wouldn't hurt so much.  But I am not.  Painful it will continue to be.

The Sacrifice of Praise

I realized something today that I had never realized before.  It started when I was at the cancer support group a member of my church recently started.  One of the ladies attending mentioned that it is hard for her to come to the meetings.  It's hard because she is done with treatment, and has been for over a year, and when she comes, she begins to feel the same hurts all over again.  I can sympathize.  It's hard to walk through hell and then turn around and go back in again of your own freewill.  If you just keep walking forward you begin to "get over it" and "move on." Those are good things, desirable things, things I wish for almost every hurting person I come in contact with.  Except.

Except that sometimes, you aren't called to move on.  I looked this lovely woman in the eye and told her just that.  I have been part of a support network for survivors for over five years now.  I didn't personally know any women who died from breast cancer before I joined, now I have lost four sistahs.  The anniversary of Mylette's death is approaching.  The anniversary of the death of my father is approaching.  These are hard things.  They hurt me deeply, still.  I could have avoided so much emotional pain had I not become part of a support group, and simply moved on. Except.

Except that I have something to give these women.  It's different for all of them.  Some want advice; some an ear; some to tell their story; some to hear mine.  Some just want to say "THIS SUCKS, AND I HATE IT!" and not have someone say back "Oh but you're so lucky to be alive." because let me tell you, there are days when you don't feel like the living are the lucky ones. That level of survival and focus brings and instantaneous and intimate bond that is strengthened in another's person's empathy.  That's what I have.  Some days it's all that I have.  I have the gift of shared experience, and to some, it is priceless.  It's my gift that I didn't choose, but which was bestowed none-the-less, and to walk away now would be stealing.

I ended my story by telling her that continuing to walk back into hell wasn't everyone's calling, and that she would have to determine if it was what she was to make of her "new life" (just between you, me and the wall, I think she'll stay.), but that one thing she could be certain of, as long as she made the trip back to help others, she would never completely heal.

Which brings me to my revelation. I have often heard the term "sacrifice of praise."  It's a churchy term which I sang often and had a slight grasp of what it meant.  You know, a "praising when you don't feel like it" kind of grasp.  But that isn't it at all.  A sacrifice of praise has nothing to do with singing and raising hands, or at least, it doesn't for me.  My sacrifice of praise is that everyday, I scrape open my wounds a bit, and as the blood flows, I walk back into hell and hand out more of my gifts.  It's a giving that costs me more than any tangible gift could.  It's something I love and at the same time something that I would rejoice to be free of.  To be allowed to walk away, to move on.  That's my Sacrifice of Praise.  It's the thing I do with my life that hurts me most, that continues only because God calls me to it, again and again.  The thing that will always be accompanied with some amount of pain and suffering...not unlike dying on a cross.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our suffering, so that we may be able to comfort others in all their suffering, since we ourselves are being comforted by God. For just as Christ's sufferings overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ. If we suffer, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we are suffering.     2Cor 1:3-6

The Air I Breathe

I am not a great woman of prayer.  It seems shameful admit this because, shouldn't all we Christians be able to tap into prayer as easily as turning on a faucet?  Truth be told, I think it really is that easy, but first, we have to find the way to reach the tap. 

There are many things that I do well and easily.  School was usually little more than a distraction of inconvenience for me.  I rarely studied and still graduated in the top 10% of my class.  I tend to grasp concepts quickly and easily and assimilate them into my mind just as quickly.   Except math.  Math requires that I think, a lot.  It requires more than 42 seconds of time, and while I was in school, I didn't care enough to do that, so I didn't.  I was good at enough other things that math was not essential to my existence (sadly I later TAUGHT math in high school--which really says something for today's schools I think.  I have also vastly improved at math.).

Prayer is my Spiritual Math.  I can do a great many things with ease and distinction: lead worship, study the Bible, teach, talk, work.  But not prayer.  There is a catch though, unlike math, prayer really is essential to my existence. It is a discipline that I must master if I really want to have all that God desires to give me.  It is what truly sets me apart as a Christian, a direct line of communication with the God Most High.  The rest of those things that I can do well, are merely window dressing.

So how does one become "good" at prayer?  That is the answer I am seeking to find, now.  Obviously the simplest and most practical answer is to simply DO IT, and that is something I am working on doing with regularity and as a constant practice throughout my day, but is there more? Or is it simply that with every prayer I expend, and then inhale the Spirit into me as I would air into my lungs, with each prayer breath, does God expand my spiritual lungs a bit more and then a bit more again?  Much as skin divers hold their breaths for minutes at time because their lungs have become so elastic, will constant practice of the discipline of prayer allow me to plumb the depths of heart of God?

I don't have any answers.......yet.

Two Things

Love God
Love People
That is All

I read this on a billboard in Chattanooga this May, and God seems to be bringing me back around to it over and over again as the summer has gone by.  The problem is, it's not always something I want to live out.  See, people bug me.  They are annoying and needy and close minded; and they don't do things the way I want them done; and I never know what to say to them.  Sounds pretty awful doesn't it? It's true though.  Not of all people, obviously.  I do have some friends.  But my tendency is to deliver harsh judgement of failure to meet my high standards for those who don't quite make the cut.  Loving people does not come naturally to me.

However, that fact, does not excuse me from the commands of God. 

• Love God-- check. Got that one.
• Love people-- hmm, yeah not so much
• That is all-- wait. WHAT! that is ALL?--surely there is more on the checklist that I can move on to and we can just come back to this love people thing later..right?

Nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnope.  The thing with God is, He is a basic, black and white kind of diety.  Do this. Don't do that.  This pleases me.  That angers me.  This is good.  That is bad.  He knows what He wants, and there really isn't a lot of wiggle room in the matter.  You are either walking in the will of God or....you aren't. Ouch. Just because the actions of love don't come naturally to me, doesn't excuse me from exercising an attitude of compassion.  Love is a discipline, just as prayer, meditation, worship..anything that pits the soul against the flesh will be.  I can pray for a loving attitude, and wait for God to rain it down on me as I sit piously in my reading chair with my Bible open across my lap, but I rather think that God is waiting for me to be out there somewhere actually putting love into practice before He is going to find me worthy of the larger portion.  He'd rather see me deplete my resources and continuously turn back to the source, than build up a storehouse waiting for "just the right time" to let the love go.

I know this in my head.  Living it out is another matter entirely.  Having said that, it's time to get dressed:

So, chosen by God for this new life of love, dress in the wardrobe God picked out for you: compassion, kindness, humility, quiet strength, discipline. Be even-tempered, content with second place, quick to forgive an offense. Forgive as quickly and completely as the Master forgave you. And regardless of what else you put on, wear love. It's your basic, all-purpose garment. Never be without it.

                                                                                                   --Col 3:12-14

Dance Lessons

I often tell people I can't dance, which is mostly true.  There is however, one dance I do very well.  I call it the "I-can-fix-it" dance.  I am the child of an alcoholic, so some people would call it the co-dependant dance, but co-depency comes in many forms, and I am a fixer, thus the title for my own personal step.  The fix-it dance goes like this:  something is wrong, so there must be something I can do to fix it. When I don't know for certain what the something is, I will try several things: fixing my environment, fixing something personal about myself, fixing food (it's true--i am an emotional cook.  When things are bad, I make a big, fat dinner).  I will try each of these things in succession, tweaking and changing if I see signs of improvement, perfecting to the n'th degree that which I think may be the problem.  If the "wrongness" continues, I find myself whirling more and more frantically, trying all the little tricks and manipulations I know fix the problem.

It's exhausting.

And the bottom line is, there are some things that I can't fix.  Even if I could make myself perfect, keep the perfect house with the perfect atmosphere, be the perfect frugal gourmet, perfectly fix all the household issues and quirks....somethings will still be broken because they have not. one. thing. to do with me.

That's a hard lesson to learn.  Even harder is to simply ride along the bumps and valleys not trying to fix and perfect everything in sight and allowing someone else to fix things for themselves.  I find myself continually trying to stick my hands in there and give it just a little tweak, just a word of advice, just a helpful hint.  What I need to do is stand back and let what happens, happens.  Even when the end result may directly affect me.

I can't fix it.

I can't dance fast enough.

And you all thought I had it all together, didn't you?

**hangs up dancing shoes and walks away**

Needful things 2: Grace

Can I just say, it was a rough day. I think my children were inhabited by hearing impaired slugs overnight.  I had to tell each and every one of them forty-eleven times to do the things we do every single day, and on a day where we ACTUALLY had to be somewhere (VBS--do you not think the kids would jump through hoops to get to VBS?? Or did they think I said the camp of screaming and torture?) By the twenty-sixteenth repetition I was irritated, followed swiftly by tense, escalating to angry and finally culminating in the shrieking banshee of hades with my lips pulled back from my fangs and my eyes protruding from their sockets.  Then when everyone was crying, we drove to VBS.

fun fun fun

There are two ways to recover from this kind of morning.  I can let it ruin my entire day, and perhaps my tomorrow.  I can wallow in self-pity and feelings of unworthiness.  I can punish myself again, and again and again and again

OR

I can extend to myself, the same grace that God has already shown.  Because see, scripture assures us that when a sin is repented--it's gone...as far as east is from west.  Except we forget that and just keep dragging it out and stroking it, like picking a scab to let the bleeding start again.  We excel, we revel in redundant remorse.  We want to punish ourselves today, tomorrow, next week and next month for sins that God, Himself, no longer remembers.

Let me let you in on a little secret, each moment that goes by, it's brand stinking new when it arrives.  Grab it.  Embrace it.  Make it better than the moment before.  Fill it up with grace and don't wait until you've earned it, because that moment will never come.  Fill it up anyway.  Take each glorious shining moment and stack it one on top of the other until you build yourself a shining castle of gracefilled moments.  And when you mess up, and you will, toss that stone in the ocean, as deep as deep, and keep on building.  Draw on that grace every day, every hour, every moment.  It never runs out.  Try it.  I dare you.

Eventually, you will find that extending grace to yourself is the easy part.  It won't be long until a voice in your ear will say " I hear you calling them moron and loser, but now try seeing them the way I do.  I look at them and say lost, child, beloved, my heart.  Look deeper, look with my eyes and see who they really are."  See, deep down in the heart of me, I am not graceful or merciful.  I mete out judgement and opinion with heavy hand, and, as I am never wrong, you won't change my opinion or lift my judgement.  But He calls me to be more, more humble, more loving, more graceful with each day.  Grace is my salvation, and my cross to bear as I find I am no holier, no better, no more worthy than all the "morons" of the world.  They are me, and I am them.  Day by day grace renews me and consumes me.  I depend on its presence as I do the very air I breath, and when that is my position, I am finally where God wants me.

"Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me,
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind but now I see"

"Hallelujah Grace like rain falls down on me"

Needful things #1

It seems I have spent much time recently focusing on what I need and trying to weed out the superfluous noise in my life.  It's amazing how difficult it is to do in a world where the message of "go, go, go, Do, Do, Do, MORE, MORE, MORE. is pervasive and all encompassing.  It occurred to me that fleshing it out here might be the best way to to help narrow my focus and so everyday this week I am going to blog on my own "Needful Things" (series title inspired By Cheri because she loves Stephen King).  The one topic I won't be rehashing is my stance on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  That is a subject I have dealt with exhaustively before (see the left sidebar for links) and all of my needful things posts will be from the standpoint that my faith and salvation by grace is the most necessary component in my life.  Without it, all other endeavors are doomed to failure.  But I also very much believe in the necessity of living purposefully, because even if I do a million "good" things, if there is no purpose, then it is only busyness, a sounding gong.  Part of becoming me, is understanding what it is a truly need and what is me just trying to live up to everyone else's expectations.  I'll be honest, as of this moment, I am not entirely sure what the next six days will bring.  I am leaving all options open and trusting that the Lord will guide my thoughts and fingers as I share them.

While I am on the subject of needful things, today my middle girl took an enormous step in her faith walk. I mess up often and in big ways, but somewhere, somehow at least some of my focus is reaping the desires of my heart, though I know that that is mostly because God's plan and power are far bigger than my mistakes.

My Church can beat up Your Church

(a.k.a. Suit up and hold on this soap box may be doozy)

I have changed multiple things about my lifestyle this week.  Let's just call it a massive purge.  And perhaps it is because I am in a purge mode that I need to get a few things off my chest.  About once a year or so it seems that certain "wave" of subject matter goes through the blogs and makes me..well.....sad mostly.  It generally starts like this "Rick Warren..blah blah blah...ruination of the church...blah blah blah blah..." and ends with"......all big churches suck and do everything wrong."  Now, I am not a Rick Warren disciple.  I really didn't get much out of 40 days of purpose, but I think that is because it is written for the pre-christian/ early Christian more than the actual content matter.  And honestly, it really is fine with me if you don't like him, or endorse him or want to read his stuff (as an aside though--I learned recently that he reverse tithes--meaning he gives away 90% of his total income and has lived in the same "normal" house for over 30 years--so I do have a large amount of repsect for the man whose life shows the fruit of his faith).  My beef isn't about Rick Warren.  My problem is the line that then goes "....because he is part of a big church and I don't like him, I think all mega-churches who follow a similar pattern (and I can even list the criteria--no pews but SEATS, coffee shop, over head projector, praise band, theatrical lights and Saturday services WITH JEANS!) are not true churches. "

Now hold up a minute.  I find it MIGHTY disturbing that someone can read that someone heard that someone read that this (insert large church such as Saddleback here) does this, but do you KNOW it to be fact? Have you listened to the sermon, spoken with the preacher, conversed with the congregants and witnessed the fruit of this church in person? Or are you bashing just because something pious couldn't possibly be popular? Because I think it might behoove you to be very careful that you aren't sitting the judgement seat against someone else while that big fat plank in your eye takes out the front row (if you are now singing "stuck, stuck, stuck" raise your hand).  Now I am not saying that it isn't possible that a large church could be preaching a watered down, fluffy, feel good gospel, but I am saying that it is not necessarily more probable simply based on church size, which is an error that far too many well meaning Christians seem to be prone.

See, here is the thing.  I go to a very large and rapidly growing church.  I have grown up with this church, joining it when it was a little less than 200 people and now approaching a church of 2,000.  It has always been a Bible based church (meaning all sermons are based on scripture and the entire Bible is held to be inerrant and yes --gasp--literal), but as the church body and pastoral staff have deepened in faith and in searching the word, I have also witnessed an enormous explosion in active members.  Not a week goes by without multiple baptisms, missions teams leave nearly weekly, the homeless, hungry and underpriviledged are serviced in our own neighborhoods.  We are a very fruitful body. And the people just keep coming. 

Let me go out on a limb with a little theory of my own.  Yes, it is possible that a church might grow because a feel good church is an easy way to assuage your conscience.  But is it also not equally as possible that a growing, thriving church brings in so many who are lost because something about the Word of God being spoken in Power and in Truth, something about the body of Christ functioning as it was meant to function (not in perfection here on earth, but with the Christ at the center even in its imperfections), that when the prayers of the saints rise from the building, that when the worship is alive and the people are ushered to the throne room of the Most High God....is it even the slightest bit possible that people would find that utterly irresistable? Could it be that the love of Christ in certain gatherings can become so tangible that the lost can touch it, feel it, taste it on their tongues? And is it then possible that each week they might also go out and bring in more lost souls because what they have found is so pure and so real that they want everyone to experience for themselves?  Does scripture not bear this out?  When Jesus preached the True Living Word did not people come by the thousands to hear the Message? Did not the crowds swell and push until Christ Himself was in physical danger from the throng?  Correct me if I am wrong but aren't we supposed to be attractiing people to the body and not repelling them with a tome of pious man-made rules?

This then is what makes me scratch my head, because I am pretty sure of myself that all of the above is true. Are we speaking the truth in love and scripturally pointing out the error of a fellow believer when we question the faith of not one or two, but literally tens of thousands of people simply because of a building they worship in? Or are we simply bashing because when we are worried about what might be the shortcomings of others, we don't have to worry so much about fixing what might be wrong in our own walks.  Understand this, watered down faith is about as real as smoke and air when we try to hold onto it, and there is no salvation in it. But by ignorantly tearing apart that of which I have almost no first hand knowledge, by becoming part of the ugly stone throwing mob, I am no better than that which I hope to prevent.  Sowing seeds of discord and division are the work of the devil himself.  Be sure you know whose side it is you represent before you step behind your pulpit.

Hmph

Being that my Bible study is drawing to a close for the year, I decided to start Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore over at Lifeway.  I had started it before and even paid for it, so it's just sitting there waiting for me to take advantage of it.  Several of the WAH ladies are joining me. It's not too late to do so yourself!

Anyway.  Today was the uncomfortable examination of just how selfish I really am. The lesson was duly called "crucified," and it didn't take me long to realize that I AM NOT.  Which, in a nutshell STINKS because it means somethings have to change.  And I think we have covered how I feel about change.  However, the study also has a BIG OLE sections on comfort zones, and how they are not at all part of a crucified attitude....and let's just say I was a big ball of "UN-HAPPAAAY" when I reached the end of the lesson.

At this point, you can of course, depend on craig and his lesson to drive the point home (utilizing what felt like a spiritual sledgehammer). He opened the lesson with this:

Phi 2:3-5

Do not act out of selfish ambition or conceit, but with humility think of others as being better than yourselves. Do not be concerned about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others. Have the same attitude among yourselves that was also in Christ Jesus:

MMMMM-HMMMM.

THEN the man had the AUDACITY to give us all poker chips (the sermon was "Taking a Gamble") and challenge us to keep the chips as a reminder to ALWAYS choose the crucified path, the path where we put ourselves last and everyone else in the whole stinking world first! And he wants us to do this for SIX ENTIRE MONTHS!!!! HMPH!

HMPH!

I am drilling a hole in mine and putting it on a lanyard.  I'll do it, but God is going to have to do some work on the being happy about it.

Hmph.

Little Things

Did you watch Sesame Street when you were young?  A lot of those songs are stuck in my head forever, I guess.  There are worse things stuck in there.  Lately I've been playing a song called "Little Things" as I go through my days.  I realize that there aren't a lot of "big" things in my life, and that makes me happy.  Don't get me wrong, big things are fun and exciting, but when it gets right down to it, if you can't find happiness in the little things, then you probably aren't going to find happiness.

God has worked a tremondous calming in my spirit over the last six months.  My heart has felt more contented and at home then I can remember feeling for a long time.  That is not to say that I don't still get angry and impatient, or emotional and wound-up, but somehow it seems easier to smooth those moments over now.  It's a portent of summer of the deep south, this sense of slowing and stretching.  Time becomes fluid and the speed of life slows to match the length of the evenings.  It's as though we hibernate in reverse.  Living our frenetic  schedule through the cooler winter months and clearing the warmest months of all but the most essential activities. 

It is in these languid moments that the little things seem magnified as though they wait for the quiet moment to make their appearance.  Contemplation lends them beauty and character that activity overlooks, and stillness lends depth to what I assumed was flat.  It is the little things that make life resonate with symphonic fullness.  I hope I don't forget.