did you know?

I was saved in a small church where I grew up attending, and then continued to attend as an adult.  I learned about Jesus in the basement of that church…the flannel board Jesus, , and I learned about a big God that lived in the upstairs I thought he was only a God of Judgement. It wasn’t until I was 35 years old that I heard a visiting pastor share the incredible truth of salvation. A few months earlier, I had heard that same message for the first time from Pastor Andrews at a Living Singing Christmas Tree performance.  I was at such a broken place in my life. I felt unloved and so useless. I wanted to kill myself, because I had created such a mess in my life.  But I called out to God and asked for Jesus to forgive me. I finally understood that I didn’t have to be perfect for Him to love me…he wanted me just as I was…broken and needy, and wanting Him.

Even after I was saved, chose the wrong path so many times…mostly because I wasn’t in God’s Word, or with God’s people in a way that I could be discipled and grow. But God did not let go of me, and as I was willing to submit more and more to Him, He began to transform me.

Salvation is not easy. I've made wrong choices, I have had a wrong heart, I've hurt people, and I continue to struggle with the things I know I should not do. But each day, I chose to follow Jesus, and by doing that, I am learning to look for Him in every way...in His Word, in relationships, and even in trials. He has been faithful to show Himself to me the more I seek Him . In the last year and a half, we have moved, my husband lost his job, I had major surgery, my husband was diagnosed with cancer and had surgery, and just last month my dear Poppy, my dad, went home to heaven. I have had a son turn away from the Lord and from his family. I don' t share this as a way to focus on the trials or difficulties, or for sympathy,but as a way to give God the glory for how He remained so steadfastly my God through it all.  No matter what the situation, God is longing to be our primary focus, the love of our lives, our priority. No matter what!  More than that, He longs for us to demonstrate Jesus in the midst of it all. We are so blessed at The Chapel  to have the opportunity to hear truth and study it, to gather with each other to pray, to disciple one another and to serve.

Knowing the person I was, and who I am even today, it is amazing to me that Jesus  would raise me up to spend  eternity with Him. How could I do anything but serve Him? through in this church, or in this ministry?  But I will tell you that if I couldn’t sing on the platform, I would sing backstage. If I couldn’t sing backstage, I would pass out music. If I couldn’t pass out music, I would pray for all of you. It is my desire that if I were to loose my voice tomorrow, that God will find a heart that worships Him.

There are many times in the past 14 years that I have wondered if I had lost my hope, or my joy...even my faith. But when the Lord wakes me up in the morning with a song of praise in my heart to Him, I know without a doubt that He is real and living and loving me through it all.

My grandsons are four and seven, and both are a delight, and as different as east is from the west. They received a Nintendo Wii for Christmas, and Jonathan, ever the contemplative and thankful boy, asked to take a minute to pray and thank Jesus for Christmas. Augie, the four year old, said, upon opening the gift,
"Wow. I didn't think I was that good this year."

Meghan, being the mom of dry wit and keeping her boys grounded in reality, said,

"You weren't."

I have been thinking about what Augie said, a lot. Makes me wonder if when we get to Heaven, and meet the Lord face to face, if many of us will still not completely understand the concept of the gift of grace.

Will I fall at his feet and exclaim, "Wow, I didn't think I was THAT good!" To which God will answer,

"You weren't that good, but Jesus is."

I delight to know that I will be in His presence, worshiping the King of Kings for Eternity, because of the goodness of what Jesus did for me.

The struggle is great. My heart is burdened for so much today. I wonder and ask God if, when we are committed to give our lives to Him, does it have to mean that we give it all? Do we live the sacrificial life in everything? Do we have to choose Him or family? Him or finances? Him or relationships? Him or my time? Him or my desires? His or my thoughts? Must I really love Him with "all of my heart, all of my mind, all of my soul and all of my strength?"

Yes, yes and yes. I know that, Lord... and you know where I am weak.

When Jesus called the disciples to follow Him, they left everything behind. Their positions, their families, their way of life. To follow someone and something that demanded every bit of them. And they went. Willingly. Without question. 

I wonder why, Lord...why it is so hard to entirely and willingly follow you? Have I not yet grasped the grace of your forgiveness? Do I not really know the complete love that you have for me?  Do you yet have to teach me these things through my unwillingness to place my whole life in your hands?

Yes, yes and yes. And I thank you that you are such a gentle and wise Teacher. Help me to be a willing and sacrificial disciple.

This morning, I was getting ready to wash my hair, and as I turned my head upside down under the sink faucet, I noticed the rust stain  at the bottom of the sink. It was there when we bought the house. A little chip out of the porcelain, which had rusted, and  someone had tried to paint over. The paint wore away. JR tried to cover it twice with a porcelain filler. The rust stain keeps reappearing and getting bigger.

The sink has a purpose, and is useful, alright, and even does it's job with that flaw, but if it's let go long enough, that sink won't hold water.

It occurs to me that I often approach my flaws in the same way. Try to paint over them, work around them, fill them with fillers of some sort. And what happens? They keep reappearing. Flaws can't be hidden for long. They are what they are.  I am a flawed and imperfect person. It's in my nature, for "all have fallen short of the glory of God.'

My filler and paint have been different things through my life.... Alcohol, shopping, vanity, image, relationships.  But you know what I finally I  found to be the perfect filler for my stains and chips?  Filled with the Holy Spirit!  He is in me, and part of me, and finds every flaw. Yet, praise His name, through Jesus, I am filled and full, and "presented blameless and holy in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation (Col 1:22)"

I'm so much better than that sink. I know now that even though I'm flawed, " he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight (Eph. 1:4)" and because of that, I will always have a purpose and be useful to Him.

Yesterday, God had my attention. He dragged me, kicking and screaming, face down into His presence,as I searched His heart for answers for my hurting heart, a heart bearing the scars of history.... answers to questions like:

How sorry is sorry enough?

What does forgiveness look like?

Can I ever do anything to make up for all the hurt and the mistakes that I have made that have affected the lives of others? 

God, could you show me? 

Yes.

As far as the east is from the west, my sins are forgotten.

Forgiveness looks like Jesus, who bore my burden on Calvary.

I can never do enough to make up for my sin, but Jesus did. and He can.

"Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it, But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."

"But because of His great love for us,God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive in Christ even when we were dead in our transgressions- it is by grace that  you have been saved."

"Now to Him, who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to HIM be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations, for ever and ever!"

Prepared, Praying and Pleasing

Tonight, I was feeling a little like Wayne and  Garth from SNL's "Wayne"s World", whenever they would meet the person of their latest rock star obsession..."We're not worthy! We're not worthy!"  Or sort of like Isaiah, who, when he approached the throne of God, was so humbled in His presence, he could only exclaim, "woe is me...I am a man of unclean lips and I live among people of unclean lips!" yet answered "Here am I, send me," when God asked, "whom shall I send?"

The longer we are living in our new neighborhood, the more I realize that God has us on mission. And tonight, He showed us flat out plain that the people that we are getting to know more each day, and grow more fond of... our neighbors who are unchurched... need God. They are the dearest people, and have embraced us as we've settled into our new neighborhood. God has literally opened doors of invitation to their homes, and shown us favor with them. As we shared a meal together tonight at one lady's home, the majority of the conversation was about church, and opinions about church. Person after person expressed their theology, and their reasons for not going, and what they believed or didn't believe. and all I could think of was this:

Lord God, I am so not worthy to serve you. I can see exactly why you have placed us here, for this time, and this season to meet these new people, and to share the love of Jesus Christ with them. I can't do this alone. I am not able to save. But YOU can. I don't have all the answers.  But YOU do. I am so not worthy to meet this challenge, buy YOU are!  And in your infinite wisdom, Lord, you still choose the least of us to be an influence in our broken world. You choose the simple to confound the wise. You ask us to be prepared at all times to have an answer for those who would ask us. 

I prayed tonight, and asked God to do what Paul had asked... "to pray that I would proclaim this message clearly, and that I would be wise in the way I acted toward outsiders, that my conversation would be seasoned with salt,  and to make the most of every  opportunity."  Because I knew, sitting in that room tonight, with eight neighbors, that if I am to make the most of every opportunity, and I am to be wise in how I act, then I need to depend on Him to do that. If God has placed us here, for this time, with these neighbors, HE will be the one to do the saving. HE will be the one to beautifully show Himself  through us, and only because He must increase and I must decrease. Which is hard to do when you are the one in the room visible to a lot of unsaved people.

So, as I sat there tonight, answering questions, and listening to the longings of hearts, and the opinions about church,  I knew that the only way that God would use me would be if I were to do as Paul instructed:

"devote yourselves to prayer, to be watchful and thankful... that God would open a door for our message... "

To love the Lord our God with all my heart, soul and mind, , and to always be prepared (in His Word), praying ( without ceasing) , and pleasing (Him, by living as obediently as I can.)

Always being a reader, a lover of books and literature, a researcher.... my first  inclination after I decided to believe in Jesus, was to go to the bookstore.  I knew that I had to read about Him, to know everything I could about him.  For a very short time,  there was a wee Christian bookstore in my home town...a little storefront, that I had so many times passed by, without interest or desire. 

It was amazing to me how the presence of God and the fact that I had made a decision to commit my life to Him, turned on the desire (or should I say, urgency) to read about Him. Fortunately, that little bookstore had what I needed...I bought Bibles. "The King James."   "The New This or The Other Amplified International Contemporary Translated Word of God Bible."  "The Book."   I couldn't get enough of God's Word.

We were talking at work yesterday about Jesus...I know, I know, we work in ministry, of course we talk about Jesus, right? But we were having a personal discussion about Him, and His impact on our lives. How the truth of His Word has impacted our lives. I related that  as much as I have loved books and literature all of my life, there was not one book that I had read and loved that had changed me.  Not "Tess of The D'Ubervilles."  Not "Of Mice and Men."  Not "Tale of Two Cities." or "Ellen Foster" or "The Poisonwood Bible."  But The Bible...God's book. His story about who He is....that has changed me.

I can know about God, and know about Jesus, and read everything I can about Him, but  believing and knowing are two different things. I can never encounter scripture, that it does not have the power to transform me.

" For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow, it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Hebrews 4:12.

Oh, I love Him so. I really do.

Yes, even me.

For years I had filled my life with nothingness...I say that because of all the things I filled my life with, it all amounted to nothing, really.

A visiting pastor was at our church. I will never forget how excited and in love with the Lord he seemed to be. Week after week, I listened to his preaching, while sitting there, week after week in row five on the left hand side of the sanctuary. I was sitting in the same seat, sitting with the same people, my marriage was still a mess, my life still felt hopeless.  Nothing about my life was different,  yet I was hearing something I had never heard before. I heard that Jesus saved. That he loved me even though I was who I was...in fact, exactly because I was who I was! 

As the days went on, I talked to that pastor several times, wanting to clearly understand that no matter what I had done, no matter what my life was like in the present, that God still loved me. I didn't need to do anything to make God love me more.  That God didn't love me any less because I had been such a fake and so sinful. He didn't love me any less because I didn't want to live. God loved me exactly because He wanted me to live! He wanted to change me in ways that I could never accomplish in my own will or strength.

One night, I  telephoned that pastor, to ask one more time, "God can love me? Even me? No matter what I had done?" Yes, he said. Yes! After that pastor shared what Jesus had done for me, I can't even say exactly how it happened, except that I called out to God. I told Him that I wanted my life to be different....that I believed that He had died for me, so that I would never have to be judged for all of my sin... past, present and future.                           

I prayed that night, and God was more real to me than he had ever been before...all those years that I had sat in row five on the right had side of that church.I was so desperately sorry for the choices I had made, how my life was nothing but a huge mess, and I had been the one mostly responsible for making it that way. In the presence of a perfect God, I saw how much I needed him. Something began to change in me that I didn't really understand at that time, but that God has been faithful to reveal to me over  the last fourteen years. He is real, He is true,  and I knew that God had a plan and a purpose for my life.

"I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord , for He has given me strength, that He considered me faithful, appointing me to His service. Even though I was once a blasphemer, a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance.  Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason, I was shown mercy, so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example to those who would believe on Him and receive eternal life. NOW to the King eternal,  immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever, Amen."

I've just finished knitting another sweater, and doing the "photo shoot." Thank goodness for the delete button on my camera! I am so appearance conscious. I'm not proud of that fact, but it is true. To say that I have struggled with body image in my lifetime is an understatement. I'm not proud of that, either. Some of my issues have been issues before I can really remember. Others have come with time, and how I have chosen to respond to the world around me. I'm influenced by what I see, and in my mind, I can't explain it, I will always see a large person...someone who needs physical adjustments.

I say this honestly because I know that it is a nearly  universal problem for women. And do you wonder why? Culturally, socially, and every other way, we seem to find our value in appearance....our physical bodies and the clothes that we put on them. Yet God, who Himself is robed in majesty ( Ps. 45:8) , tells us to

Clothe ourselves in a "garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."   (Is. 61:3)

                                 with Splendor (Ps.43:3)

                                 with Strength (Is. 52:1)

                                 with the Lord Jesus  (Rom. 13:14)

                                 with compassion (Col. 3:12)

                                 with humility (1Pet. 5:5)

                                 with strength and dignity (Pr. 31:32)

God knows that we often obsess over the outer image. He knows that as women, we can become more focused on appearance adjustment than true character and faith and heart adjustment.  His words are like a soothing confirmation to me as I consider a change in wardrobe for fall, and in frustration try to find the perfect pair of jeans...albeit unsuccessfully after many trips to many different stores.

"The LORD does not look at the things a man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."  (1Samuel 16:7)

                         

2 Corinthians 5: 1-10

"So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it."

This morning, I read from 2 Corinthians, where Paul talks about our earthly home and our eternal home. If I am living in this earthly tent...my body, this world, I should always be in anticipation of my heavenly dwelling place that God has promised me because I have chosen to live my life for Christ Jesus. 

It's not easy to live in this abode...in my own body and on this earth. Well, I take that back...I should say that actually, it is easy. Even though I long for my heavenly body and heavenly dwelling place, I must confess that it's a pretty comfortable existence right now. Life is pretty good. I have a great husband, a nice home. Family. Friends. A job in ministry. I'm well fed, well read. I have more than I could ever need, and I can get more of what I want where all of that came from.

So does God  want us to suffer in our earthly dwelling? Does it have to be all sacrificial? Can't I enjoy life and the things of this earth?

Of course. Of Course!!! He who created us and knows all of the things that make us who we are and what thrills us and gives us joy, and He is the creator of all of those things that we can enjoy. I think the thing to keep in mind is that while God gives me this life here, He wants me to be mindful at all times of the source of joy, and the provider of this comfort. To remember that this life isn't all there is, and so I shouldn't get too attached to it.  But in all things...to keep  GOD  before me, behind me, and beside me...in great anticipation of  the day when I will meet Him face to face, and to long for eternity, even as I live in this body on earth.