He Has Supplied

When I first started to write this blog, I imagined getting my feelings out. I had just had a miscarriage at the age of forty-two. I was desolate. Today, I am crying out to God for help and comfort yet again.

I am forty-six. Well past my prime. I have made choices not to pursue things that might have had a fulfilling bent in my life. Some of those choices will have permanent consequences. I feared failure and I feared success and I feared both simultaneously, the two fears linked like hearts entwined. I am struggling with this. I am also struggling with the idea that many of the things I did pursue wholeheartedly have the stench of failure on them.

I do believe that God knew I would make the choices I have made, and yet He has not taken me home to heaven. That communicates to me that there is still something for me to do on this earth, no matter how humble. 

I am humbled. I set out to chart my own path. I wanted to throw career to the side, just enjoy myself in a stress-free housewife manner. Turns out that was probably not the right thing to do, because now I feel hollow and useless. My brain is so stressed that the gifts I imagine I had don't seem to be operating freely anymore. I used to speed-read. Whole paragraphs gulped and understood in an instant. Now I read the same sentence more than once, the little telegraph machine in my head beating out a rudimentary understanding of the words and phrases, barely hanging onto their meaning, the ink getting fainter and fainter on the tape. Tears pour from my eyes all day long. Every single day.

I do not believe that God has let me down. He cannot do that. He has never done that. He was waiting patiently for me to run down to the end of my little disobedient schemes, to eat the bitter fruit of them until I wretched violently....to wretch violently until I was dehydrated spiritually to the point of death. Then, (now) at the point of death, He is watching to see if I am ready to listen and obey. Obedience should be easy. Trust should be easy. After all, God has shown himself very strong in my behalf. What I have discovered is that I have operated for so long out of a stronghold of fear, that I have to literally let God reprogram my brain. Nothing short of that. All of my instincts and actions have to do with fear. All of my reclusive, non-risk-taking behaviors spring from that dark fountain. Jesus, on the other hand, has a life-giving fountain of strength and purity, of joy and ability, of power and of ease through the Holy Spirit. The challenge for me today is how much of that life will I allow to recharge my heart and set my feet moving again? I have slept for so many years, for so much of my life. I have been dead to my own abilities, to the call of God on my life. I have hidden from Him like Adam and Eve did in the garden, all while begging for his mercy and help, which He has supplied.

Hiding Place

Is it okay to admit that you are tired? Some problems that persist just suck the life out of us. Just wear us down until we have little hope of a fix. That's where I am with a couple three issues that have me tiptoeing around the edges of complete heart-shattered status.

What happens when you reach the end of yourself? Is that a good or a bad place to be? I don't know. Today, I took one of my walks. I will admit to you, walking bores the snot out of me. I want to jog, but I have a knee that acts up if I do. I walked into a neighborhood full of brand-spanking-new, multi-million-dollar homes. They had a couple of swans down by the clubhouse pond. It looked like maybe a wedding reception had taken place over the weekend by the looks of the big white tent with fancy folding chairs under it.

Coming back into my own neighborhood, I heard some wind chimes singing lightly from someone's back patio area. I thought about what it was like to be a child all those many years ago. About what it was like when my oldest son was very young and still carefree. When we laughed and felt hopeful about so many things.

Hope can be elusive. It darts like a butterfly at times, just out of reach, but still in our sphere of existence. Other times it lights unexpectedly upon us in the form of good news.

I think it was Billy Graham who wrote a book called "The Reason for My Hope." I'm sure he was talking about Jesus. I have been looking at my pretty, pink-and-brown NLT Bible for several days now, wondering what it would be like if I spent more time reading it. Maybe that's what I'll do for the next little while. I know I can pray and be at peace, no matter what comes, because God is with me. I can pray about all of my cares, big and small, while being okay with the outcomes because God will be with me all of the way. The knowledge that I will never be alone is like a rock-solid castle that I can hide inside.

Heart Check-Up

I have had a week of broken fellowship with God. We all know He is not the one who moved, as the old saying goes.

Periods like this always start this way:  I encounter a few difficulties which leave me wondering what to do. I feel frustrated. I lose sleep. Then a close friend or family member says something hurtful to the sleep-deprived, frustrated me. I lose it, venting to a trusted friend. The "losing it" becomes a landslide. Every time the person who offended me comes up in conversation (which is often, because I will harp on the offenses), I talk about them in a spite-filled way which shocks even me. Out of a very deep well of hurt, anger and frustration come terrible words that should never be in a Christian's mouth. 

Somewhere in this cycle, I pray for forgiveness out of purely selfish motives. How will I ever be successful in any way in life without God's favor and grace? Down to my knees I go in stark terror. How will I ever face the steep challenges in my life, have the courage to even get out of bed unless I know God is with me? Down to my knees I go in fear. Within the same day, at times, I am back on the venting machine, though venting is a sanitized way of putting "spewing vitriol"....

At some point in the last week, I wanted to tell my friend I was dumping all of this garbage on that this is not the real me. Then I was brought up short by the reality that yes, it is the real me. It most certainly is. The Bible even speaks to this. "A good person produces good things from the treasury of a good heart, and an evil person produces evil things from the treasury of an evil heart. What you say flows from what is in your heart." (Luke 6:45, NLT)

It reveals to me, as well it should, that my heart is in serious need of change. I have been a Christian since I was four years old. While I wasn't born yesterday, and certainly see and understand that all Christians have the fallen nature and sin, I simply don't believe I should, at my age and with the number of years I have under my belt as a believer, be as immature in my spiritual walk as I am. I know that there are Christians who have a better developed ability to love in all situations than I do. I am quick to get angry and to stay there, stewing in my own venom. It is poisonous to my spirit and chokes out anything good that I want to do.

Every time I see that I am seriously compromising what I know to be the truth (that love forms the basis of all Christian teaching/action/thought and that without it I am just following empty religious forms), I make some attempt to take a hard turn, That's what I am doing today. I am taking a two-week break from constant use of social media. During that time I will be quiet some, since I am living in a new place and don't have any friends yet. I am going to pray for clarity as to how to get closer to God during this time. I am going to pray for strength in the storms of my life. I am going to pray for improved sleep and for the ability to handle the days when I have not had much sleep. 

Pray for me!

Oceans of Emotions

I am being taken to school, so to speak, on the topic of emotions. What I feel like doesn't necessarily translate into what I AM like. If this sounds circuitous to you, imagine how it is coming across to me, sitting here with too much lunch around my girth and my second cup of coffee in my hand, bathing in some negative emotions and hoping that I have, well, simply not encountered enough people today to totally dishonor the Lord.

I am turning forty-six this week. That doesn't feel too good. If you send me an inbox message that "it beats the alternative" I will unfriend you. Just kidding. Sort of.

Back to my central theme today. If I feel unspiritual, that does not mean that God has left me. That does not mean that I am cut off. If I feel out of sync with the Holy Spirit, that does not mean that He is not speaking to me, cannot get through my fog to me. I just have to keep showing up in my study and waiting for Him. Just have to keep making myself available. If I FEEL like a useless, boring housewife, I am probably not one. They would not know they were boring and, I guarantee you, would be bent over a baseboard scrubbing with a toothbrush or making a homemade birthday cake, floured up to their eyeballs. They would not be reading this blog and, if they did, "that's stupid" might fly through their curtains-carpet-recipe-laden mind as they quickly clicked away to take a "What Kind of Spider Are You" internet test.

But I, again, digress. As I sat down to pray, my mind was like a ping pong pall in a room full of two-year-olds playing with kittens. Then it hit me: I DON'T HAVE TO PRAY HIGHLY ARTICULATE, ALL-BASES-COVERED PRAYERS EVERY SINGLE TIME I PRAY. I don't have to shout at the devil every time (though sometimes it might be justified). I can just say a few things. I can turn my heart to heaven. I can go on with my day.

Some days we will just plain be uninspired, from an emotional standpoint. Other days, we will be flat-out led astray by our emotions, if we allow them to jerk us into the wrong actions or away from the right actions. This is why knowing that God is right at hand and will help us to finish our tasks every day is so vital to me. I will just keep praying that God will show me how to spend my days, then give me the strength to do what He showed me to do. Some days it will be fun. Other days, like today, my body will feel like dead weight under my lack of excitement. Somewhere under all of that flesh, the Holy Spirit lives. He doesn't leave. He WILL help me.

One day as I either worked on a latch hook rug or flitted about the house, I overheard Dr. Charles Stanley say "This thing of emotions is a big deal." Ummmm, darn tootin'. I think I laughed out loud when he said it, though he was dead serious. Another time I heard Billy Graham say during an interview, or perhaps I read it somewhere, that there were times the weakness in his body, under the pressures of old age and illness, made him want to refrain from his duties as an evangelist. However, God always came through for him, giving him the power he needed to preach.

Two things I can rely on, if I am willing to follow the Lord and don't shrink back from fear of the responsibilities He will give me: He WILL speak to me in ways that I can clearly understand, marking out the way for me to go. He will also supply all of the resources, including the emotional and physical strength I need for the tasks He has called me to. 

Knowing Jesus is My Highest Goal

Had a couple of down-in-the-dirt days during which I asked myself if I really have to keep praying for certain things. Well...yep. I do.

During those couple of days, yesterday especially, I felt so disconnected from the Lord, after having had such a revival of spirit in recent weeks due to really confessing the truths of the Word and letting them wash over my mind.

Complete submission to the Lord is challenging, but it is do-able. It is ONLY do-able through the power of the Holy Spirit. That's a  pretty good deal. Come to the Lord, ask for HIS power to do the right thing, then receive all of Him in exchange for my tattered, earth-worn self! Can't beat that deal.

What I have found in my quest to go deeper in the Lord is that my desire to seek and find Him needs to be greater than my desire for the amazing side benefit of having my prayers answered and enjoying incredible favor, blessing and protection. At first it was enough that the scales fell from my eyes and I was able to see that I could confess good things and have God help me with them. Then the distance came in between us and I believe it was because I was not still seeking as diligently, maybe focusing too heavily on the blessings, which are not bad things, they are just SIDE BENEFITS. I guess I was giddy with the joy of being instructed to believe for good things and I lost sight of the fact that the greatest benefit to sold-out Christianity is intimacy with Christ himself.

Today will be a better day than yesterday was! It did not start out that way, but it will end that way. I will put one foot in front of the other with my goal absolute, unfettered fellowship with Jesus. I will pray boldly for all the other stuff along the way because now that God has given me my hope back, I am not letting Satan snatch it with religious recrimination. It looks ridiculous in his sorry mouth.

God, My Father

How many of you realize that God is in all truly good things that touch a believer's life? Amen?

My dog is so loyal that, I noticed yesterday, when I went into the kitchen to use the computer, he followed me and laid out on his side on the tile floor for a nap, underneath the table where I had my computer propped. How comfy was that? Probably not very. For years, every time I take a nap on the weekend (and buddy, you better believe that's often), if I absentmindedly shut him out of the room, he will lay across the bottom of the shut door, on the outside of the room, patiently waiting for mommy. A few times recently I have sent him on up to our bedroom after Gary has gone to bed to "take a nap" (that's Charliespeak for time to lay by Laurie's bed for awhile). I nearly tripped over him going in to go to sleep later because he was laying by the door, waiting for me. He could not get to me, so he did the next best thing. He flanked the door that led to me. In all of creation, next to human beings of course, it's tough to find any living thing that approaches a dog for loyalty and selfless love. Charlie has an entire family that loves and is devoted to him. We have yet to figure out why or how he senses that he is my dog (he was a gift to me eleven years ago). God just decided to make him that way, to give him to me as a tangible reminder of His love for me.

Charlie, though a wonderful example, is just one of many expressions of love, just one of many precious gifts God has given me over the forty-plus years I have walked this broken sod. I was reminded of him because he is, OF COURSE, right here in my study at my feet.

Sometimes, in the heat of battle, I take my eyes off of Jesus, who the Bible says is the "author and finisher of our faith." I forget that I am not to fight the battle, but only need to be still, as God told Joshua. I will be most victorious when I am only looking at Jesus, only basking in His perfect love and understanding that He has his arms of protection around all that matters most to me. If I focus on what He is doing, rather than what my enemy is threatening, the battle will be won, and won handily. He said this to Joshua, that mighty warrior: "For I will be with you as I was with Moses. I will not fail you or abandon you." (Joshua 1:5b, NLT)

My friend Emmanuel Chekwa once told me, when I was looking for a job, that I should be filled with  "joyful expectation." That phrase has never left me. I pull it out often and I have quoted it to others. When we have a need, we should excitedly look to see what our Father is going to do! He takes EXCELLENT care of His children.

Of Blue Diamonds and Other Not-So-Hidden Treasures

A crew of CBS News anchors giddily surveying a rare blue diamond worth tens of millions of dollars caught my interest this morning. My coffee was cold and my day was off to a typical ADD start. Call this person, look for a hummingbird on my new feeder (none yet), wonder if I will get around to exercising, wonder if I can get Jonathan to hike with us this weekend. Look out window yet again. It was an aimless start. But not for God.

He is remarkably consistent at rolling up the night sky and tucking away the stars. He ceaselessly dispatches those ocean waves to shore. He sends the worms wiggling up to daylight so all of his beautiful birds can have a nice breakfast. He also, apparently, in all of his fascinating mystery, tucks blue diamonds here and there in the earth and then, because of his generous nature, allows people to dig them out. He showed us how to cut and polish them so that they, in the end, become something breathtaking, like the blue gemstone the woman from the South African mining company had on display this morning, reflecting light in a brilliant way from the velvety black background she held it on. She apparently knew her stuff. The woman gushed in an engaging South African accent, extolling the virtues of this rare blue diamond. I have to admit, I liked it. It was very, very pretty.

When people see things like that, I wonder, doesn't it take more work over the course of a thinking person's lifetime to NOT believe in a creator? Next question: how could one not fall deeply, madly in love with a being so outrageously creative, endlessly intelligent, crazily wise, Someone in whose hand is the turn of the seasons, the breath of all creation, the love between a mother and a child, the heart of a doe for her fawn. Someone who sets leaders of imperial nations on thrones, charts the course of history, diverts hurricanes, manages the storehouses of snow in the heavens (this is directly referenced in the Bible) and YET takes time to see each one of us, to communicate with us personally, to love us uniquely and individually and to reach out to us one by one????? I am all about my Father today! Make it my heart's cry every single day, Lord! You are SO EASY TO LOVE!!!!