Grace at Mercy

Me and Nancy Alcorn, Christmas 2009

This past week, I was given the amazing opportunity to go to Nashville, TN to work with Nancy Alcorn on an upcoming project. It was an honor to be asked and a definite answer to prayer! Mercy Ministries' corporate headquarters is right across the street from Mercy's Nashville home, so another graduate and I got the chance to go over to the house and speak with the current residents of that home.

It was absolutely mind blowing to be on this side of the podium. I was looking into the faces of girls who had come to the end of themselves and were struggling to regain footing in their lives - knowing that not 2 years ago, I was in their place, looking up at a guest speaker during our mandatory morning class, wondering if they had anything to offer the pain that consumed my heart. It was a humbling experience, to say the least, because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that without the miraculous hand of God in my life, I would not be alive, let alone living a life of freedom. We both shared our testimonies and then opened it up for a Q & A. Kind of like a sorority, there are some things only a Mercy Girl would understand, and it was really fun to be able to candidly offer suggestions and reassurance on an inside level.  I know that this project is going to turn into something great, but if the entire trip were only to speak to those girls, it would have been worth it a thousand times over.

The girls asked some amazingly insightful questions, and the Spirit spoke through both of us - sometimes a little more bluntly than I would have answered on my own! But one of the questions really got me thinking:
"What is one thing you would do differently if you could go back and go through Mercy again?" 

The other graduate and I answered in a couple of different ways, but even after I was on the airplane, this was on my heart.... I would have stopped working SO dang hard to heal myself and surrendered much sooner. Part of the program at Mercy is weekly assignments to read certain books and listen to teaching CDs. My counselor would select and assign materials based on where I was in my healing journey. I read everything from Battlefield of the Mind to Ruthless Trust to The Practice of the Presence of God, and I listened to more hours of teachings and sermons than I could even begin to count.

Probably through the first 3 months or so of my stay, I thought that if I worked hard enough, read fast enough, listened carefully enough and wrote eloquently enough, I could earn my healing. I wanted to prove to God that I was serious so that maybe He'd notice and throw a little sanity my way. Consequently, I was distracted, stressed, and exhausted most of the time. Mercy life can be pretty fast-paced, and while there is set aside time to work on "homework", they kept us pretty busy with other things. It wasn't until about my fourth month in St. Louis that I finally started to get a grip on the concept of Grace. Grace changed everything. 

"Mercy" and "Grace" are used pretty interchangeably in the Bible, so most people think the two words mean the same thing. Both are gifts from God and both are undeserved, but here's the difference:

Mercy is God's undeserved favor. God shows us mercy when we don't get what we deserve and when we get what we don't deserve. For example, I did something wrong, but because of God's mercy, I did not have to pay the consequence. I did not earn this, but because of God's mercy, He gave it to me anyway.

Grace is God's power working in us to do what we could never do by ourselves. God gives us grace - His power in our lives - to do good works. Our human nature is weak and prone to evil, but by God's grace, we are able to live righteously and do good work for Him. God's grace - His power in our lives - is also what changes and transforms our souls into the likeness of Christ.

See the difference? They're used interchangeably because there is nothing we did to deserve Grace. Grace is an act of Mercy.

I say all of that to say this:
No matter how hard I tried, I could not heal myself. No matter how much information I put into my brain, it was only by the GRACE of God - His power in my life - that my soul was transformed and renewed. All I had to do was surrender to His work. Understand, God does not force - He invites. God does not push - He draws. God's amazing grace cannot work in my life until I allow it to. And a lot of times, that means getting out of the way.
It may not have changed a lot about what I was doing, but it sure would have changed what I was experiencing. I could have read those books with the faith and knowledge that God was going to use them according to His will. I could have enjoyed myself a little more, knowing that the pressure of transformation wasn't on me, it was up to Him.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8)

I used to read that, "For it is by God's undeserved favor you have been saved..." Which is nice! And true! And reiterated by the statement, "and this not from yourselves". Of course God's favor is not from myself....
But look at this... "For it is by God's power working in you that you have been saved... And this power is not from yourselves...(you can't save yourself)... it is the gift of God."

Grace doesn't mean we lie down and quit doing. It's a quiet surrender of the Spirit that yields to faith and trust. Push the seed deep into the brown-black soil and walk away. Don't wake in the middle of the night frantic that maybe you didn't do enough to make it sprout. Let God do His thing with that seed. It will sprout in His way in His time while you surrender your worry and striving to Him. In fact, if you get in there every three hours and dig the seed up to see if it's doing anything, it'll likely never sprout. Get out of the way and let God's miracle of Grace do its thing. It's all a part of receiving.

Merry Christmas!!

It's been an incredible year. Walking this journey of victory over darkness has been a daily act of faith and learning. My heart has been tempered in ways I never thought possible and has, at this moment, left me feeling raw and vulnerable and wonderful. I cannot begin to express in words the gratitude that courses through me... gratitude, along with a myriad of other emotions I didn't think I was capable of experiencing. I am rendered almost speechless.



Two years ago at this time, I had just been released from a psychiatric unit in a local hospital. My heart was torn apart, my will to live was non-existent, and I was weary on a cellular level. I had no hope- no vision beyond the pitch black blanket over my soul. I was hospitalized by my psychiatrist, who was worried I was a danger to myself. She could see the emptiness in my eyes. She could see that I had given up. It's hard to imagine, and it's hard to describe. Despite my beautiful family and faithful husband, all of the good things in the world could not penetrate the broken, sorrow-filled pit in me. 

While I was in the hospital, the doctor deemed my depression "treatment resistant". He recommended that I try ECT and an MAOI class anti-depressant as a last-ditch effort to offer some relief. I declined the ECT but allowed a medication overhaul. Unfortunately, the MAOI put me into a manic state, and coupled with the depression and anxiety, I became even more dangerous and hostile - if that were possible. I spent the evening on Christmas of 2008 in my bathroom, injuring myself to quell the voice of self-loathing. I wanted nothing more than to die.

Here, two years later, I stand in the light of dawn. By the grace of God, I've been self-injury and eating-disorder free for over a year. My eyes are opened to the amazing gifts around me, and my heart has been revealed to experience love for the first time in my life. I'm building new memories with my family almost every day. God's repairing broken relationships, bringing in new friends, and helping me let go of destructive bonds. I feel fragile, still, at times like an opening flower bud. But I'm anchored in a real relationship with Christ. I've looked into His eyes and heard His heartbeat and He has breathed new life into my soul. Someone once spoke over me, "God says, 'You begged me for a second chance. I'm not into second chances. I'm into new life.'"

If anyone has read what I've written here over the past year, you know I'm not trying to pretend like life is simple, or even easy. My life is very much a work in progress, and I'm grateful that God didn't drop me off at the curb after "fixing" a few issues. The healthier I become, the more I realize my humanity. The more I understand the power of God, the smaller I feel - but the stronger as well. I'm living. It's taking me a while to figure out what that means - living life to the fullest. But I can see it. The things that fill my world are astounding. Even the pain. The fact that I can feel pain and not run for the nearest blade or bottle is a sheer miracle.

I could go on and on, but that's the gist. Christmas is a celebration of the dawning of a new era. The coming of God incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ changed EVERYTHING about how God relates to humanity - how God relates to me. We celebrate the love and the sacrifice, and we give gifts to each other to emulate in some infinitesimal way the consummate gift that is Jesus. Christmas is about the opportunity to have a new life, and to literally be made into a new being. I've gotten to experience that in some very literal ways this year. So when we sing, "Joy to the world, the LORD has come", we celebrate the arrival of Hope.

Hope has changed my life and the lives of my family. Merry Christmas! Praise be to the One who saved the world. Even me. 

times they are a changin

Change is difficult. 
Even when the changes are positive, the very fact of difference is a challenge to cope with. I used to get angry with myself for my apparent weakness and lack of adaptability. I've found, though, that God has created us for stability. Made in the image of Him, who is the same beyond time, we have a glimmer of the unchangeable One in our makeup.

Our family moved this past weekend. There were so many reasons to move on, most practically that we had simply outgrown it. For some reason, the boys continue to get taller and my daughter seems to acquire "stuff" at a rate I doubt the Roman Conquest ever saw. My husband and I are coming into our... thirties... we need our space. We can't live in dorm-sized accommodations like those college kids. It's exhausting! Regardless, we prayed and waited and planned to move for about six months (which seemed like so much longer), and finally, God brought us to the house He had in mind for us.

We love it. It boasts an additional bedroom and a great rec space for the kids so that the adults can stake our claim in a crumb-free zone. (we'll see how long it stays that way) It's a peaceful place, and for the first time in my adult life minus one year, I do not have to share a wall with any neighboring residents. The kids are released to be the free-range chaos they were intended to be without fear of hushing. My husband finally has the office he has long deserved.

Change, though, is hard! As I watched my pasta over cook, I had my husband running to the van to see if he could find the box with our colander in it. I can't find the light switches, and I have this strange sensation that I ought to be wearing flip-flops in the shower. We live in a different part of town, so I'm unfamiliar with the local grocery store or the fastest route to school. I had to switch Walgreens, which just makes me feel like I'm cheating on my old one! Even the kids, as adaptable as they are, are stretching for a full night's sleep with all of the new noises to wake them.

As a child, I relied on predictability for survival. Anyone who has grown up in the throws of violence understands the over-trained ability to read body language and mood shifts in the room. If I knew what was coming, even if it was painful, I could at least prepare. Some of my most terrifying memories from childhood involve being caught off guard in one way or another. I still live most days in a state of hyper-awareness. I sense shifts in atmosphere like a deer with a flickering tail, ever ready to bolt at the first sign of danger. And, of course, it affects my spiritual outlook.

We all inherently associate God with our primary childhood guardians. I had read about the Lord who turned women into pillars of salt for looking over their shoulders and ruined cities and made fish eat people. I paralleled God with an angry, impulsive, vindictive man - but I was comfortable with that. I knew how to deal with His sort. All I had to do to survive was figure out what pleased Him and made Him angry, and then be sure to do the right things so as to stay in His good graces. Problem is, God's standards are impossibly high.

I had also read about a loving, steadfast, and faithful Father. Oddly, I was less comfortable with this image than the former. I couldn't sort out the dichotomy I saw in destruction and protection, and this seeming changeability made God frighteningly unpredictable. Verses about God's unchanging nature made no sense. Was He just predictably unpredictable?

I had failed to grasp the simple fact that God is not a man. God is LOVE. Not as a descriptor, but as an essential to who He is. I came to know the true heart of God, learning to discard the fears of my past and let go of my false assumptions. See, God is not made in the image of man. He is not a reflection of our nature. We are a reflection of HIS. I had to toss aside everything that I thought I understood about how to approach the throne and trust. God is not to be figured out, but to be believed. Somehow, I had to take Him at His word and hear His heart.

I am finding a truly unchangeable Father. He is not only good, He is always good. He is not only loving, He is always loving.

There are so many changeable things in this world. Life is a breath. Nothing is truly predictable. Change, even of the good kind, happens every single day. And Change is hard. But circumstances to do not change who He is. Through pain and loss and fear and heartache and victory and laughter, God is and always will be the pure, sweet Truth.

God is the rock that we can cling to in the chaos. In the tossing waves and shifting sand, He is the same. There is safety in stability in knowing that when the world falls apart around us, we can look into the eyes of a God who regards us with unwavering adoration. Gone are the days of trembling before the doorknob, terrified to reach out because I did not know what I would get. There is so much comfort in knowing that every, single time I approach the throne of Grace, I will meet the same Lord with the same open arms. Every time.

I sit in my chair in my new house and lean upon the One who remains The Same despite the geographic shift. I pray the protection of The Same over my kids in their new rooms. I trust in The Same traveling down new roads of every kind. Thank God, because I don't want to be afraid any more. 

"You laid earths' foundations a long time ago, and handcrafted the very heavens; You'll still be around when they're long gone, threadbare and discarded like an old suit of clothes. You'll throw them away like a worn-out coat, but year after year you're good as new.  Your servant's children will have a good place to live and their children will be at home with you." (Psalm 102:27, The Message)


"Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:17, NIV)

i agree, it was so worth it

I follow several blogs. Some are posted by friends of mine, and some are posted from well known authors and speakers. I don't get the chance to sit down and read books very often, so checking in on a daily "snack" from a trusted author/teacher is a good way for me to get some extra-curricular input on the Word. I believe it's important to keep listening to podcasts, reading books, or checking blogs to always keep a fresh, relevant perspective on faith. Always, always, go back to the Bible, but don't be afraid to find out what other Christians are thinking. Especially ones you know you can trust to speak the truth to the best of their ability.  Ok. 30 second commercial over.

In that, I was reading a post on Priscilla Shrier's blog the other day that really hit home for me. It's entitled, So Worth It.  The guest author, Shundria, talks about how much her life's been transformed since becoming a parent. Life isn't just about doing things that are fun for her and her husband. Life's about doing things that are a blessing for her children - her "little kids who fight, leave messes, break things, disobey and are at times unappreciative".  She likened that relationship to the Father's heart. How we can "fight, leave messes, break things, disobey, and are at times unappreciative", but God loves to bless us anyway. The Lord gave up His life, anyway.

I have to admit. My attitude this past week has been pretty awful. With the kids home for the summer, my nice little routine has been mulched by three whirlwind, hyperactive, demanding, fussy kids. My quiet time is not quiet, my house is wrecked, and our budget is strapped because they consume products of all sorts at an unbelievable pace. Not to mention the fact that I have no time for myself or school or even to take a shower because of the constant, 24/7 nagging...

But God arrested my heart. I prayed so many times this week, "God. I can't do this. You have to help me. You have to come through for me. PLEASE." And He did. He always does. But I don't deserve His love, attention, patience, or mercy any more than my kids deserve those things from Kurt and me.
God gives me those things, gave me everything, because He loves me. I'm His girl.

I LOVE my kids. I could probably take a cue from my heavenly Father and extend a little love, attention, patience, and mercy. I could probably afford to be less selfish and resentful and a little more grateful that I get to have this time.

In Luke 9:23, Jesus said, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me."

I remember singing a song about that as a kid, but that's heavy stuff right there. Christ calls us to a life of selflessness. To deny our own rights, wants, desires, needs, and die to our nature to follow after Him. Christ didn't just ask us to do it arbitrarily. He set the ultimate example.

So, tonight, Kurt and I packed up the kids, towels, swim suits, life jackets, floaties, goggles, flip-flops and sunscreen and went to an overpriced "aquatic center" (swimming pool with a fancy slide) to let the kids blow off some steam on a Saturday evening. And they had a ball. I sat in a chair and observed and cheered, and Kurt played some, coached some, and hit the water slide a time or two. Afterward, we put them back in the car all sopping wet, got some food because they were tired, hungry, and cranky, ate, bathed and put them to bed. It was not about me and Kurt. It was for them. (I wanted to stay at home and watch my favorite series on Netflix.) But you know what? It was so worth it. I'm not even sure they said Thank You in so many words. Nonetheless, they had a blast, and in blessing them, it blessed us.

50th Post!!

It's my 50th post! Which is an appropriate landmark, because I've had kind of a landmark day!

I've been so busy writing for school, that I haven't had much thought or energy for what to write on my blog! As I was in my quiet time today, I was praying about what the topic for this week should be. Nothing really jumped out at me. I've been hammering out several hundred words per day in essays, debate postings, and discussions, so the creative well has been a little bit dry. At the same time, I always feel like I'm neglecting to share all that God is doing when I don't make time to blog. So I keep my heart continually open for what God would have me write.

It has been a goal of mine, ever since coming back from St. Louis, to get rid of some of the negative artifacts of my past life. In talking to a friend who also grew up as a military kid, I realize that I hold onto keep sakes with real tenacity. There were so many times in moving around that I was asked to say goodbye to someone I would never see again. I have a couple of friends from the first fifteen years of my life, but most of the people, places, and things that I treasured from that time are gone. I've also lost quite a bit of memory to the PTSD fog that surrounds the chronic trauma I experienced. In that, journals, knickknacks, jewelry, pictures, and other things become overly important. I become fearful that if I don't hold onto that scrap of paper, the memory of that time will be lost forever. Abbey put it really well when she said, "I just know that my memories don't do it justice". I feel that I need something tangible to hold on to.

There are certain things, however, that are better left in the past. I have written in journals diligently from 1998 to now. Some of those years, particularly between 2006-2009, hold very dark moments of total despair. I wrote things, drew things, and recorded experiences from that time that still hold leverage over me, and God has brought me to a place where I'm ready to let those things go. Not all of it, but certain entries that are the very opposite of life-giving. Hear me: I'm not saying that it's wrong for anyone to keep things that remind them of tough times in life. But for me, at this point, I felt the Lord saying, "It's time to move on".  I have such strong negative associations to certain things that I wrote and drew - things God has already brought me through and out of - that to go back there would just be rehashing things He has already laid to rest.

It's different for everyone. Sometimes, in letting go of a past relationship, we have to get rid of clothing or pictures that remind us of that person. Sometimes, it's getting rid of music or movies that take us to a dangerous place. For me, it was getting rid of certain pieces of jewelry, certain images, and certain journal entries.  I made sure that I was not alone, and I was prayerfully supported. I put on some worship music and started in my sketchbooks, tearing out anything I felt "check" in my spirit.
It was pretty obvious.

Once it was all said and done, I had a small box full of papers I never needed to see again. I wanted to burn them and get rid of them, but living within city limits doesn't allow for back yard bonfires. Somehow, though, I needed those papers destroyed. So the Holy Spirit prompted me to soak them in the tub. As I immersed those records in the water, I watched the ink slide off the page and one of my entire journals just slide out of its binding. I felt like that particular aspect of my past was literally being washed away.

Still not really knowing what to think or feel, I heard the Lord speak to me the phrase, "letting go of the former things..."  I looked up the reference in my concordance, and I found this in the Message Version of my Bible.

"You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since, then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go.  It's rotten through and through. Get rid of it! And then take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces his character in you."  Ephesians 4:20-24 (The Message)

Thank You, God, that you have given me an entirely new way of life, and that You've given me the grace to get ride of the old things. It's been quite a journey, and I know You're not finished with me yet.
I am so excited for what is to come. I know You have great and wonderful plans in store for those of us who call ourselves Yours.

the nature of obdience

Abbey and I had an awesome conversation today about the nature of obedience, so I've asked her to contribute to the blog! Thought you all might enjoy a different perspective for a change. Enjoy!

 "Over the last two years, I've had a pretty major revelation that has shifted my entire relationship with Jesus. I've always had a personal relationship with Christ, felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and understood Biblical Truth, but I still stumbled and fell and didn't know why. I saw people all of the time that I knew were solid Christians and believed the same things I did, but they kept doing wrong and making choices that hurt them. I couldn't figure out why my foundational beliefs didn't stick. I used to have a list of 'I will never...', but when it came down to it, it didn't hold up. I knew better. I knew how wrong it was. Why did I backslide? Why couldn't I hold on to what I believed?


  So today Emily and I were having this awesome conversation that ended in this huge revelation, which happens a lot. We were talking about how a strength in our relationship is that we are able to bring issues to each others' attention and be honest with one another without the fear of offending the other person. Emily was talking about how her stomach hurt (again), and I said, "Maybe it's because you're lactose intolerant. Maybe you shouldn't be drinking milk." 
  It got us talking about how hard it is to be in a relationship with someone who will not allow you to hold them accountable. Emily just takes the suggestions I give her and assimilates them into the way she looks at things. And I do the same. She doesn't go off into this defensive, victim-mentality place where she justifies why she has to drink milk, all the reasons that giving up milk would be impossible, and how unfair it is that she can't have it. And she doesn't swing to the other side where we're sitting in a restaurant and the waitress comes up and asks her if she wants a milkshake for desert, and she says no because she doesn't want to make me mad. It's not co-dependent in the way that she's choosing to abstain from milk because she's afraid of how I'll judge her. She handles my input like an adult because we're friends. We have a fairly healthy relationship, and she knows that I don't want her to be sick. So she is able to take that and make her own decisions based on what she knows will be ultimately best for her. And if she choses to drink milk and be sick, she's ready to deal with the consequences. 
  
  I realized that on a grander scale, that's what shifted in my relationship with God. I began to pursue His heart and started to ask Him where I fit in the story. Who am I to him - me personally, Abbey. In a healthy, functional relationship vs. a dysfunctional relationship, you care about that person and you know they care about you. So when they bring something to your attention it's not from a place of guilting and lording over you, it's from a place of genuine care for your well-being. As I got closer to God's heart, I started to understand His motivations for the guidelines He has placed in my life. I had never had a revelation of God's heart for me, so my convictions didn't stand up. They were based out of a 'not wanting to make God mad... mostly'.  And it went both ways. As I saw that God's law and the way that He operates are out of place of wanting what is best for my personal well-being - that it is good intentioned, like a great friend - I began to obey out of a motivation of not wanting to hurt His heart. Because I kind of dig Him. And He has shown me so much Grace over and over, even when I've made mistakes, even when I've taken my own road. He's not asking me to prove anything, it's all about true, unconditional love. And that's a solid motivation for doing the right thing. My convictions are unshakeable because I understand how He works. The 'why' behind everything.


  So Emily thought that was cool and asked me to write about the differences between the unsteady 'Bible-school-answer' convictions I had before and the rock solid things that motivate my life now. What was missing was understanding God's heart. You can have rules and regulations, truth and even Holy Spirit conviction, but if you don't understand God's heart and who He is, then it won't hold up under pressure.


-abbEy out"

wow

I cannot believe it is the 15th of March! We've just gotten back from an amazing family vacation to Florida, and I am exhausted! Kurt's grandparents live in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, and we've been meaning to take the kids down there to see them. These last couple of years have been less than ideal for taking on a venture of this magnitude, but they have taught us some things.  Time is not a thing to be taken for granted. I think intense suffering of any kind brings about a shift in perspective. Things that seemed important lose their value and memories, moments, and relationships become paramount.  There are a lot of things we could have spent money on this spring... but taking time to reconnect as a family, enjoy one another (for the most part), and capitalize on this very unique snapshot of time in the lives of each one of us was so very important.  And I'm out of my mind grateful. I'm sure as soon as the haze lifts off my mind, I'll only become even more so. hehe

I was working on my 365 Project, and it was interesting to me what points on our vacation stood out. We got to do some amazing things including Disney World, the beach, warm weather after a ridiculously frigid winter... but we also got to see friends and family, and I got to peek into the hearts of each one of my little ones. As a mommy, it's utterly priceless to see my kids unguarded and unhindered and free to be completely themselves. There's something very raw about a family vacation. Everyone's true colors rise to the top after 30 hours in the car and 10 days in mixed company.

For my part, God has done a miracle in me. There is no way I could have ever handled a trip like this in my past. And yes, I got cranky and tired and irritable at times. My blood sugar dropped, the sleep depravation caught up with me, and the weariness of living under someone else's roof began to weigh me down. But overall, there was so much grace for each and every moment. There was always a long night and a new morning. I had no trouble sleeping at all, which 1.) for me is amazing, and 2.) for being out of town in a MIRACLE. We hit the Disney crowd with three kids in tow, and I had no anxiety whatsoever. None.  (I don't typically do crowds... understatement of the century)
Someone told me a couple of weeks ago that it sometimes takes a trial to show the change that God has made. And while I wouldn't necessarily categorize a family vacation as a "trial", I do know that it could have been a catastrophe! God deserves so much credit for the work He has done in my life. We not only survived, but we had a wonderful time.

And I'm super glad to be home. :)

Isaiah 43:19
"See, I am doing a new thing!
  Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?
  I am making a way in the desert  
  and streams in the wasteland."

my scars or his?

I was looking at my arms this morning. They carry the scars of the times I tried to "do it myself". I thought about posting a picture, but I remember the gridlock of my battle with the addiction of self-injury, and I do not want to cause anyone to struggle.
Every time I look at them, though, I remember the failed attempts to control, manipulate, and survive this gift of life. Everyone carries scars from the times in their lives that they tried to handle things their own way instead of His way. I don't know that I'd go so far as to call it a "privilege" to carry my scars on my physical body, but it sure is easy to notice. Although, it wouldn't take much soul-searching to find the "hidden" scars as well.

This morning, I woke up to an amazing string of text messages from a friend of mine. They spoke life, authority, support, and encouragements into my circumstances. The thing is, I know that those words didn't just come from her. I know she would agree that they came from the heart of my Father God. One of her last statements was, "you are surely on the heart of God today!"

My husband was getting ready to go out of town for the weekend to help lead worship for our church's youth group retreat. Meanwhile, he's telling me about our son, Alex, who woke up at 5:30 this morning with a very high fever. At the same time, we're getting Isaac off to school and trying to arrange rides for my daughter, Annabelle, to go with her best friend to swimming lessons. It was a whirlwind from just before 8am until just before 10am.  But as the dust settles, and I'm alone in the house with my sleeping son, I am brought to my knees by the simple statement, "you are surely on the heart of God today!"

What? Who am I? I'm one of billions... just trying to live out my life with a heart postured toward Christ. But He reached out to me through this dear friend, knowing that I needed to hear from Him now more than ever. And it's not just her... God speaks to me through so many people all of the time. I just have to be attuned to the tone of His voice.

Oh God, I don't want to do this by myself. I'm responding to your invitation to stand strong in the waterfall of your Grace. Take the lead. I surrender to your magnificence. You have the power to make the sick well, to raise the dead, to forgive sins, and to move the hearts of kings, nations, and mountains. I am nothing without you. I don't want any more scars. I want to do it your way - completely. Lead on, Holy Spirit. I will follow you.


"Remember how you were when you didn't know God, led from one phony god to another, never knowing what you were doing, just doing it because everybody else did it? It's different in this life.  God wants us to use our intelligence, to seek to understand as well as we can.  For instance, by using your heads, you know perfectly well that the Spirit of God would never prompt anyone to say "Jesus be damned!" Nor would anyone be inclined to say "Jesus is Master!" without the insight of the Holy Spirit."  - 1 Corinthians 12: 2-3 (The Message)

"Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them -- living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life...  This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life.  It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike 'What's next, Papa?' God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who He is, and we know who we are: Father and children." - Romans 8:5-7, 15-16 (The Message)

"So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life - and place it before God as an offering.  Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God.  You'll be changed from the inside out." - Romans 12:1-2 (The Message)

the perfect prayer

I've been thinking about prayer this week, and how much my prayers have changed as I've grown closer to the One I love. Both in Trinity's (@ trinityomaha) Sunday morning service last week and in Hearts (@heartsomaha) this past Tuesday, we've been discussing the concept of going from "familiar" to "follower".
Thank God we live in the US, where we have the liberty to become as "familiar" with Christianity as we like! We are free to attend the church of our choosing on any given day of the week, we are free to openly discuss religion at Starbucks or Village Inn, and we are free to read a Bible, or the Koran, or the Communist Manifesto. We have freedom to familiarize ourselves with whatever ideology we please. And I'm grateful for that! I believe that God intends for us to seek Him, not have Him forced upon us by a government.

But I came to a point where familiar was suffocating, and "civilized religion" (as Erwin McManus calls it) became a cage. It was placid and static and life-stealing. I was surrounded by hypocrisy and noise.  Eventually, I just tuned it out and let it blend into the background, like a bad commercial or paid programming. It wasn't until I became so desperate for God - so barbaric in my need for Him - that my relationship moved from "familiar" to "follower".  At the time, I didn't fully realize that it was God I was searching for, but I was uncontrolled inside, like an animal clawing for something with a frenzied desperation. It was a hunger that drove me to one hundred different ends, but eventually, I found what I was looking for. Well, I should say, He found me.

I don't know what the journey from "familiar" to "follower" looks like for others. I feel like God has to be kinda loud with me because I can be so strong-headed. :) But I was thinking about how all of this related to prayer. I used to say to God what I thought He wanted to hear. Now please understand me, I believe there are many occasions where we use another's words in a prayer in an act of reverence or to be guided when we don't know what to say. In corporate prayer, especially, there must be thought and theology applied. I'm talking about personal, "prayer closet" time.  Sometimes, on those occasions, our hearts need to cry out from the core of our beings and our minds need to take a break while the Holy Spirit inside of us intercedes.

If I was upset, I'd dumb things down in talking to God. I'd go through the ACTS model and make sure that I adored, confessed, and thanked before getting down to what I really felt. And usually, by the time I got to the supplication part, I felt stupid for asking anyway. This was, of course, because I was in the land of the familiar. I didn't understand who God is or how He sees me.

I am not a theologian or a Bible scholar. I don't claim to know much more than anything at all! But I'm looking at today's scripture and this verse rips my heart out:

Matthew 27: 45-46
"From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachtani?" -- which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 

The commentary in my amazing Study Bible is strangely quiet about this. For good reason. I've heard many, many sermons preached on these two verses. I don't claim to have the "right" answers to this weighty passage. Here's what I do know: Jesus lived and died and never sinned.   (1 Peter 2:22)  Regardless of the multi-layered implications of this final, audible prayer of Jesus Christ, we know that He was not found "guilty" in screaming this from the cross.

Without going deeper, here is my one thought... Can we be so candid with our God?  I, unlike Jesus Christ, am a sinner. I know it, God knows it, the world knows it! So why am I so afraid to say the "wrong" thing to God? He knows my heart - he knows my thoughts. Can't I just be honest? Because sometimes, when life hurts the most, or I am the most troubled or confused, I don't want to ask for peace and wisdom and favor. I want to ask the impossible questions like Christ did on the cross. Regardless of whether the premise of my prayer lines up with the doctrine I hold fast to be true, if it's what I'm thinking and feeling in the moment, I am not allowing God entry into my reality if I am not willing to be honest.

In my journey from "familiar" to "follower", I noticed that my prayers (for the most part, not ALL of them) went from "let these gifts to us be blessed" to "Abba... thank you. Abba... help me. God, WHY?" And it opened up a world of conversation that I never knew existed.
He already knows. He does. The only person I was conning was myself.

What is your perfect prayer?

tsk tsk

Shame is an incredibly powerful human emotion - one that I have struggled with most of my life.  The reason that shame is so devastating, is because it the number one hinderance in relationships. Shame keeps us alone and isolated, unable to reach out in our perceived inferiority, and unable to even ponder God as we cower in His holiness. Taken to its logical extreme, shame is a killer. People say, "I just died." And it's not far from true. Shame is what drove me to try to take my own life several times.

dictionary.com defines it:

shame

 [sheym]  noun, verb, shamed,sham⋅ing.–noun

1.

the painful feeling arising from the consciousness of something dishonorable, improper, ridiculous, etc., done by oneself or another: She was overcome with shame.

2.

susceptibility to this feeling: to be without shame.

3.

disgrace; ignominy: His actions brought shame upon his parents.

4.

a fact or circumstance bringing disgrace or regret: The bankruptcy of the business was a shame. It was a shame you couldn't come with us.

I was struck this morning while reading in Genesis (doing a little OT catch up), by the count of Adam and Eve's eyes being opened in the garden.

The first human emotion they experienced after sin entered the world was shame.  Genesis 3:7 "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves."   So many times, when I would find myself ashamed, I would try to cover it up. Backpedal, make excuses, hide, even run - physically run. In extreme cases, I buried the shame so deep inside of me that it became a festering wound, causing me to live injured year after year. 

What was God's response to their shame? He covered them properly and "made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." (Gen. 3:21) 

To cover the first sin and the first shame, God saw that Adam's feeble attempt to cover himself would be entirely inadequate. So He shed blood and covered Adam and his wife with the skin of an animal.  And to cover our shame - we, being no less naked from a spiritual perspective - we were covered by God through the shed blood of His Son.         

Christ bore our shame, and the Bible says that He despised it.  Hebrews 12:2 "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God." (emphasis mine)   And in that act, God was able to cover us.  Isaiah 61:10 "For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness"  It's an awesome parallel. We are covered in garments by God. 

And as far as our shame, as disciples this side of the cross? Psalm 25:3 "No one whose hope is in you will ever be put to shame"  It's restated in Romans 10:11  

Conviction? Yes.  Humility and Repentance? Yes. Shame? Never.

Thank you, God, that we do not have to scramble about trying to cover ourselves for the shame of things done to us or decisions that we have made. Receive the covering that God has given you through the shed blood of Christ on the cross. 

We do not have to carry shame. And that is so liberating.

Has Satan ever tried to trap you in the lie of shame? What have been some of the results of shame in your life?

Don't Hold Your Breath

IHOP-KC was amazing. We had a great time road-tripping (one of my fav. things to do), and once we got down there, we went to the Awakening service at the Forerunner School of Ministry. You can watch them Online from 6pm-12am CST Wednesday-Sunday.  It was awesome to get the opportunity to sit in the presence of God and receive.  Life can suck the life out of a person, ya know? LOL  But there are places of Oasis in the desert, and IHOP-KC was that for me.
2 Corinthians 3:17 says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom."

It's true. I can't really describe it any other way except that it's like coming up for air.  Sometimes, in a really intense movie or conversation, I'll find that I'm holding my breath and I don't even realize it. And all of the sudden I get uncomfortable and unconsciously suck in this huge gulp of air. And it's such a relief!
I guess in life sometimes I hold my breath. But entering into a sanctuary of God's presence - there are people who have prepared the way, so all I have to do is engage - is like taking a deep, refreshing breath.

If you haven't experienced the manifest presence of God, I'd really start praying about it. We can't go too long without air. Getting into reading God's Word every single day is a huge part of that. The Bible is God-breathed. It's His Breath of Life. Like an oxygen tank for our spirits. I know it might seem boring and foreign, but that's why I do this blog. To create a community where we can all read together and talk about what we're getting, questions we have, or just know that you're not the only one chasing hard after God.  Our church is doing the Bible in One Year program, and I've decided to post the listing here. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the Blog to find it. I was doing another program, but I'm excited about reading the same thing at the same time as my community. I'm inviting anyone who would like to join on in. There is an oasis in Omaha, NE, taking in this air together. (Did I just mix my metaphors?) And there's power in unity.

I'm also going to post the link to my pastor's last few sermons on the importance of God's Word. Trinity Omaha I think he does a really good job of breaking it all down to where it makes sense. I tend to ramble. :)  He even played with swords today in church! LOL (Annie, you know you want one...)

It's only the 17th of January. It's SO not too late to start. Start with today's reading, and then go from there. And, if you have a day off in the next YEAR, maybe use some of that time to go back and catch the first 16 days. :) Then come share. We're all in this together (insert High School Musical theme song).
God's doing something huge.

I didn't forget about my curiosity on John the Baptist. I'll come back to that for sure.
For now, thanks for reading! Love you all.

(Oh, and PS: some of you email me or message me on Facebook instead of replying to the blog, and that's totally awesome, too! I love hearing from you.)

New Wineskins

We spent the Thursday and Friday at the local Holiday Inn and CoCo Keys, and our WiFi connection was sketch at best. Since I have a tendency to be loquacious, I was having a hard time getting a full blog post together before I lost service. Tragic.  Maybe I should concentrate on being more concise. :) hehe

We had a wonderful time - especially for what we paid. I'm finding that, for me, I have to break "old programs". I got the opportunity to really get away from everything and spend a good amount of time thinking, praying, writing, reading, absorbing, talking, and learning. And in that, I was completely transformed. Omaha, however, remained stoically the same. Some mornings, when I wake up and see the same wall that I stared at for two years of barely being able to get out of bed, I lose myself in what was. In my sleepy stupor, I forget that I've been remade. I came back a square peg to a round hole, but the atmosphere threatens to round out my edges.

So I've been working on really pressing in to God and trusting Him to walk me through this transition. I'm holding on to His promises, to His Word, and to His unfailing love for me. Sometimes, it means changing up the program. Rearranging my bedroom, creating a different atmosphere with music or the strategic placement of a comfy chair. Sometimes it means getting out of the house entirely after 3 weeks of being snowed in and spending a little money on a hotel room and an indoor water park.
That way, I'm making new memories to override the old ones. Following God down new paths that haven't quite gotten worn in yet.
For now, the decisions are so deliberate. My default is the well worn groove of old habits. Hopefully, though, sooner than later, the decisions will come more naturally, and my default will be positive, proactive, and life-giving. Time will tell. But God is faithful. I know He didn't walk with me through seven months of living in St. Louis just to drop me off at the corner in Omaha.  The great thing about giving all I have to an omnipresent God, is that He is able to follow through on His promise to never leave me, never forsake me.

"You make all things new, you yes you make all things new. And I will follow You forward." - Israel Houghton  (Power of One)

welcome!

Due to frustrating load times and overwhelming content options, I decided to relocate my blog.  I've heard reports that my beloved "Pneumatikos" was glitching out, difficult to subscribe to, and a pain to comment in. So, as a favor to myself (I can remote post), and to anyone who might care to share in my exploits, I've decided to join the masses in the google universe. (it's just so user friendly!)

If you're reading this, thanks for hopping over. I love you all.