Our church has been going through a stewardship campaign for the past few weeks. Reverend Dudley, has encouraged us with the statement- "every member, a mission." He's challenged us to think and pray through the work that God is calling us to do- so that we might build the Kingdom of God right here, right now, and meet Christ in doing so. It's been an excellent challenge.
Yesterday, he finalized his "campaign speeches" with a sermon about the widow who gives everything that she has to the temple. Many others pass before her placing large offerings in the plate, but Jesus commends her because her small gift- only two cents- is all she has to offer. Reverend Dudley made the point that even those two coins would have been given to her. Widows had no way to support themselves. She couldn't have worked to earn the money she whole-heartedly returned to the house of God.
As he does every Sunday, Reverend Dudley, sent us out with a challenge and a blessing. May we unclinch our fists and whole-heartedly offer back to God what He has blessed us with, because it isn't ours anyway.
There are so many ways that this story can take form in our lives. But yesterday, I saw it materialize for me in an unexpected way. Not for the first time, I received a communication that accused me and Andy of ongoing unforgiveness.
This accusation, and others similar to it, has destroyed my heart over the years. I believed them, rather than what God was clearly saying to me, and I entered into the soul-destroying, joy-consuming, lie-based death spiral. God has recently been working so hard to bring me up out of that pit and replace lies with the truth.
But it's hard to not want to defend myself. To give someone else your "two cents" and explain your side of the story. There is a time for very clearly explaining boundaries to one another. We cannot thrive outside of the freedom and truth God gives each of us as His children. We have to learn to advocate clearly and respectfully and then to listen well in order to be generous and sincerely love one another. Crushing one another with our expectations and ignoring one another's needs is not what God intends when He asks us to live in unity in the bond of peace.
But, once you create that boundary line, you're left to maintain its integrity- just you and the Lord and the people that He has put in your corner. Doing so is costly, because it means receiving those accusations from time to time, even from well-meaning brothers and sisters in the faith. Tough love and obedience to God's wisdom can look cruel or wrong from the outside. Sometimes obeying God costs you your "good" reputation.
That's been one of the hardest parts for me. Losing my reputation. Losing the opportunity to be seen as someone kind and loving and who loves the Lord and wants to obey Him whole-heartedly. Instead, I've been given a reputation that's pretty shameful and heart-breaking. But what I am learning, is that I need to offer to the Lord my "two cents"- to give back to Him the real identity that He is giving to me. To trust Him with the transformed woman that He has been so meticulously creating through this trial. He alone knows the value of what He has made and is making still.
So, I unclinch my fists. I am who He says I am. Nothing more. Nothing less. I offer my reputation , my true identity, to Him. For certainly He is the One who has given it to me. I didn't work for it or create it. It's been received. And I give it back to Him. Let the accusations come. Let the desire to defend myself die. Let Him do with my reputation what seems good to Him. I have come to trust Him completely.
Monday, October 29, 2018
Friday, October 26, 2018
Welcome among the weeping
I've been posting a lot about my anxiety on Facebook recently. This morning while Story is at preschool and Grey is napping, I thought it might be a good time to update on that situation.
Since the beginning of July, I've been on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual roller coaster ride. From "out of nowhere" I was struck with physical manifestations of anxiety almost identical to the post-partum symptoms I had in the first days and weeks after I had Grey.
I didn't have a medical doctor in Fayetteville, and the one that was recommended to me had a three month wait list to get in as a new patient. So I have been "patiently" waiting to become a patient for a long time.
Every day, I want to get off this roller coaster. But, day by day, God shows me reasons why I am on it. And for that reason- and that reason only, I choose joy in this journey.
But joy does not feel good. A friend recently shared this thought with me- that joy and suffering are like the faucets of a sink. When the faucet of suffering is turned on, the flow of joy can increase to match (and even overcome) the force of the suffering. I'm discovering this truth first-hand.
In this three month wait- God has supplied me with so many tools to help me filter through my painful emotions and matching physical symptoms. Every single day, there is a new thought or a song or Bible verse or sermon or book or conversation with God or another person that propels me forward. I have been "rumbling" (as Brene Brown says) with fear, shame, self-worth, trauma, unbelief, idolatry, bitterness and forgiveness throughout this time.
Did the spiritual and emotional pain catalyze the physical suffering or did the physical suffering force me to get serious about my spirtual and emotional pain? Really, only God knows. All I know is that I prayed an angry prayer on a hot July afternoon, and God wheeled me into soul surgery in early August. And my body has ached and felt near death this whole time. Truly, we are integrated beings.
This past Tuesday was the long-awaited day of my doctor's appointment. A couple of hours before the appointment, I was struck by a panic attack that sent me into deep anguish. I found myself alone on the floor of my mom's house, heart pounding, tears flowing- so. much. pain. I didn't want to live in this much pain. Hadn't I just asked the Lord to take me home if it was going to be like this?
I'm amazed that God does not shame me for feeling like this. Instead, He gives examples in His Word of other believers- more influential in history that I- who felt the same way. I love Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In chaper 18, he was taunting his enemies, so great was his belief in God's faithfulness and mighty power, but by Chapter 19, he is sitting under a bush, asking God to take his life. "I have had enough, Lord." Me too, Elijah, me too. I love Hannah, whose grief because of her infertility and the shame continually forced upon her by her husband's other wife, causes her to cry out in deep anguish. So odd was her behavior that Eli thought she was a drunk. I love Psalm 88, from the sons of Korah, which describes a depression and suffering greater than I can imagine and unapologetically ends with the statement- "darkness is my closest friend." And finally, and most powerfully, I love Jesus, whose body was more messed up than mine will probably ever be- when He sat in Gethsemane and sweat out drops of blood and begged His Father for another way.
There is a lot of joy in the Bible. A LOT. The Bible ends with joy. There is a lot of deliverance. A lot of hope. But, there is also some very real and very sacred weeping. Today, I'm grateful that I am welcome among those who have wept because of what God has chosen to do in and with their lives.
This fellowship is not one that I would have chosen for myself. In fact, I spent weeks trying to talk myself into believing that this suffering wasn't real- that it was in my head- that I didn't really have anxiety, not really. This couldn't be right. Couldn't be my story. I'm not an anxious Momma. I'm a go-hard, have-fun, get-it-done Momma. I have generally always had a strong fortitude, a more-or-less pleasant disposition. I had such great plans for this time off from working- fun plans for me and my kids. Soul surgery, heart palpitations, depression and insomia were not on the to-do list.
But my God is too good to let my plans get in the way of His plans. My flesh might have felt better in the past, but my soul was in a death spiral. Shame and bitterness and sadness and unbelief had settled in. My view of God was small. I thought my broken heart would never mend. And I was on a head-strong path that led straight into the desert of self-sufficiency.
What I am learning to appreciate so much about my God is that He is too genuine and too passionate about the beauty of my soul to not answer an angry prayer on a hot July afternoon with a mighty work that will save my life. How precious that He would break me- in order that I would not continue along that path. How jealous He is. How faithful He is to Himself- to His own reputation- that He would not let me continue to see Him wrongly. How great His compassion because that wrong view of Him is the beginning of total soul destruction.
Please know- that I still do not feel good. I am not "on the other side" of this. Yet. For me, it is still night. I am still weeping. Still in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But, my beautiful God is here. The One that I knew and trusted in my younger years- before I believed some nasty lies about Him and His feelings towards me. Before Shame was heaped upon me. Before Fear's fangs sank into my heart and poisoned me. He is leading me in this new way- through the rumble with these many difficult things. My God is a Warrior. But He is also a Weeper. And He welcomes me into His fellowship of the Weeping. And, it is being here that is somehow, magically, mysteriously also my joy.
Since the beginning of July, I've been on a physical, mental, emotional and spiritual roller coaster ride. From "out of nowhere" I was struck with physical manifestations of anxiety almost identical to the post-partum symptoms I had in the first days and weeks after I had Grey.
I didn't have a medical doctor in Fayetteville, and the one that was recommended to me had a three month wait list to get in as a new patient. So I have been "patiently" waiting to become a patient for a long time.
Every day, I want to get off this roller coaster. But, day by day, God shows me reasons why I am on it. And for that reason- and that reason only, I choose joy in this journey.
But joy does not feel good. A friend recently shared this thought with me- that joy and suffering are like the faucets of a sink. When the faucet of suffering is turned on, the flow of joy can increase to match (and even overcome) the force of the suffering. I'm discovering this truth first-hand.
In this three month wait- God has supplied me with so many tools to help me filter through my painful emotions and matching physical symptoms. Every single day, there is a new thought or a song or Bible verse or sermon or book or conversation with God or another person that propels me forward. I have been "rumbling" (as Brene Brown says) with fear, shame, self-worth, trauma, unbelief, idolatry, bitterness and forgiveness throughout this time.
Did the spiritual and emotional pain catalyze the physical suffering or did the physical suffering force me to get serious about my spirtual and emotional pain? Really, only God knows. All I know is that I prayed an angry prayer on a hot July afternoon, and God wheeled me into soul surgery in early August. And my body has ached and felt near death this whole time. Truly, we are integrated beings.
This past Tuesday was the long-awaited day of my doctor's appointment. A couple of hours before the appointment, I was struck by a panic attack that sent me into deep anguish. I found myself alone on the floor of my mom's house, heart pounding, tears flowing- so. much. pain. I didn't want to live in this much pain. Hadn't I just asked the Lord to take me home if it was going to be like this?
I'm amazed that God does not shame me for feeling like this. Instead, He gives examples in His Word of other believers- more influential in history that I- who felt the same way. I love Elijah in 1 Kings 19. In chaper 18, he was taunting his enemies, so great was his belief in God's faithfulness and mighty power, but by Chapter 19, he is sitting under a bush, asking God to take his life. "I have had enough, Lord." Me too, Elijah, me too. I love Hannah, whose grief because of her infertility and the shame continually forced upon her by her husband's other wife, causes her to cry out in deep anguish. So odd was her behavior that Eli thought she was a drunk. I love Psalm 88, from the sons of Korah, which describes a depression and suffering greater than I can imagine and unapologetically ends with the statement- "darkness is my closest friend." And finally, and most powerfully, I love Jesus, whose body was more messed up than mine will probably ever be- when He sat in Gethsemane and sweat out drops of blood and begged His Father for another way.
There is a lot of joy in the Bible. A LOT. The Bible ends with joy. There is a lot of deliverance. A lot of hope. But, there is also some very real and very sacred weeping. Today, I'm grateful that I am welcome among those who have wept because of what God has chosen to do in and with their lives.
This fellowship is not one that I would have chosen for myself. In fact, I spent weeks trying to talk myself into believing that this suffering wasn't real- that it was in my head- that I didn't really have anxiety, not really. This couldn't be right. Couldn't be my story. I'm not an anxious Momma. I'm a go-hard, have-fun, get-it-done Momma. I have generally always had a strong fortitude, a more-or-less pleasant disposition. I had such great plans for this time off from working- fun plans for me and my kids. Soul surgery, heart palpitations, depression and insomia were not on the to-do list.
But my God is too good to let my plans get in the way of His plans. My flesh might have felt better in the past, but my soul was in a death spiral. Shame and bitterness and sadness and unbelief had settled in. My view of God was small. I thought my broken heart would never mend. And I was on a head-strong path that led straight into the desert of self-sufficiency.
What I am learning to appreciate so much about my God is that He is too genuine and too passionate about the beauty of my soul to not answer an angry prayer on a hot July afternoon with a mighty work that will save my life. How precious that He would break me- in order that I would not continue along that path. How jealous He is. How faithful He is to Himself- to His own reputation- that He would not let me continue to see Him wrongly. How great His compassion because that wrong view of Him is the beginning of total soul destruction.
Please know- that I still do not feel good. I am not "on the other side" of this. Yet. For me, it is still night. I am still weeping. Still in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. But, my beautiful God is here. The One that I knew and trusted in my younger years- before I believed some nasty lies about Him and His feelings towards me. Before Shame was heaped upon me. Before Fear's fangs sank into my heart and poisoned me. He is leading me in this new way- through the rumble with these many difficult things. My God is a Warrior. But He is also a Weeper. And He welcomes me into His fellowship of the Weeping. And, it is being here that is somehow, magically, mysteriously also my joy.
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