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. 

the winning team

Everyone worships something. Even the nihilist that swims in a suspension of meaninglessness worships the emptiness by giving it honor in his life. We have so many choices - God loves us enough to let us go. I don't claim to be a world views or spiritual expert, but I know God, and I know deceit, and I know that I'm loved by the One above all others. And so, for that matter, is every other person on planet Earth. 

This is so important to me. 

When a six year old child witnesses the death of another child, the concepts of good and evil, life and death, and survival instinct all come crashing into the concrete. I just wanted to be on the winning side, whatever side that was. I wanted to be on the side of the one that would let me live. Because of the chaos of my surroundings, I was in a very literal black and white world of innocence versus depravity. Let's call it what it is - the depravity of man is Satan's domain. And I learned at a very impressionable age what the cost of serving Satan can be. 

Hopefully most don't experience the battle on the front lines that way, but I know that many, many have. Fortunately and unfortunately both, most people have no idea what they are up against. The things of the kingdom of darkness are at best a novelty act. Our culture is flooded with zombies, vampires, black magic, astrology, mythology, and counterfeits of every kind. 

Pause and hear me: I'm NOT standing in my "Holy Hideout" condemning "the world" for their interest in the latest vampire series. What I see is a people with a sense of the supernatural who are doing everything they can to get near to it... but they don't necessarily know what they're looking for. (And, as a note, my kids do dress up for Halloween. They also understand our family's values.) 

My point is, I didn't know for a very long time who would come out the stronger. Of course I had heard about Creator God casting Lucifer from heaven. (Luke 10:18) But I didn't KNOW who was going to win, because darkness seemed so powerful to me. 

Lifelong story short, God showed up mightily in my life in ways that I can only begin to recount. And when light shines in the darkness, the darkness MUST flee from it. (Ephesians 5:13-14) God IS bigger and stronger and more powerful than our Enemy. Any attempt to persuade us differently is a lie. Whatever shape the darkness takes - sickness, poverty, hopelessness, calamity, and even death - I testify to the conquering power of Yahweh. He is more real than anything that can come against us. There is Hope in the name of Jesus.

"What came into existence was Life, and the Life was Light to live by.  The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness; the darkness couldn't put it out." (John 1: 4-5, The Message)

Chris Tomlin has a song we sang at Lifegate this morning, and the words are Truth. 

I found it so appropriate, on a day that the occult has marked as a celebration of the Deceiver, that the power of the Holy Spirit would show up and break loose the chains of fear and doubt in peoples' hearts. 

Our voices rang out and the shadows had to recede, because Satan knows that he has been defeated.

"Our God is greater, our God is stronger,

God, you are higher than any other..."

The keen survival instincts that I developed as a little girl are still awake in me. But now I know which is the winning side. And I choose to worship Jesus Christ, the name above all other names. 

"Therefore God exalted him to the highest place

and gave him the name that is above every name,

that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,

in heaven and on earth and under the earth,

and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,

to the glory of God the Father."

(Philippians 2:9-11, NIV)

this i know?

In church on Sunday, Pastor Micah was talking about "atonement".   Under the Old Covenant, atonement was made by the priest for the people of the nation (Aaron, at the time of these commands). Leviticus 16: 20-22 describes something really profound called the "substitutionary atonement".

Leviticus 16: 20-22 "When Aaron has finished making atonement for the Most Holy Place, the Tent of Meeting, and the altar, he shall bring forward the live goat. He is to lay both hands on the head of the live goat and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion of the Israelites - all their sins - and put them on the goat's head.  He shall send the goat away into the desert in the care of a man appointed to the task. The goat will carry on itself all their sins to a solitary place; and the man shall release it in the desert."

It's an obvious enough parallel. Christ carried our sins on his body on the cross. He was the scapegoat that made atonement for our sins. We've heard it a million times.  But I feel God calling me to reexamine my heart in all of this.

I was talking to my small group this morning about how difficult it can be to receive God's unconditional love. It's easy to know "Jesus loves me". We sing songs all of the time in church of the Father's love. But when it comes down to it, how deeply do we fully receive the unconditional LOVE of God?
My mentality was always performance-based.  I felt that I had to clean up my act, quit drinking, quit smoking, read my Bible every day for a week, and then maybe God would stop being mad at me and we could have a real relationship.  Even at Mercy, I would read my Bible furiously, try to finish our assigned materials faster, and stress myself out trying - trying - trying.

One day God stopped me and spoke into my heart... "Why are you trying to earn my love?"
I said, "I'm not!" (Because clearly, God misunderstood my motives...)
He gently replied, "Yes you are."
I argued back "NU-UH!"
It was quiet for a moment, but I could sense His presence. Like He was waiting. Finally, I humbled my heart and said, "That's all I got". *shrug*
It's hilarious to me now. But isn't it strange how we sometimes respond to God's convictions?

This was the point that God was trying to make:
Romans 5:6-8 "Christ arrives right on time to make this happen. He didn't, and doesn't, wait for us to get ready. He presented himself for this sacrificial death when we were far too weak and rebellious to do anything to get ourselves ready.  And even if we hadn't been so weak, we wouldn't have known what to do anyway.  We can understand someone dying for a person worth dying for, and we can understand how someone good and noble could inspire us to selfless sacrifice.  But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to Him." (The Message)

Selah. Pause a minute and think.
Don't let these stories and metaphors and churchy-rhetoric distract you from the mind-blowing message of God.  We don't have to have some high priest put together an elaborate ritual, lay hands on a goat, confess my sins to it and send it into the desert. Christ made the final atonement. It's not something that demands a repeat performance. Christ took care of it.  And God sent Jesus because he LOVES you. He loves me. He loves us. Passionately, deeply, unconditionally.
You can't earn His love. As Pastor Micah said, "There may be retribution, reconciliation to make, consequences... but never will we ever have to atone for our sins again."
And that's LOVE.

Romans 8:39 
"Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture... None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing -- nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable -- absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us."