As a believer there are all these “rules” out there… written and unwritten about who to marry and who not to marry. There are all these things in the church governments about what kind of people pastors can marry and what kind they can’t… and I am not talking about the whole gay contract call it a marriage issue… I am talking about the Genesis 2:24 covenant. I am talking about a man and woman who have chosen one another or unknowingly been chosen by God for one another.

My husband and I had made some terrible choices before we met one another… and I am sure that many thought that our choosing one another was just going to be another one of those terrible choices… as a matter of fact when I excitedly showed people the engagement ring, they did not say congratulations, instead they asked me if I was pregnant. Those who thought that way were wrong… and well truthfully there is really nothing more that I have ever enjoyed doing than proving other people’s assumptions wrong. This girl has always been up for a challenge. Whether it was jumping off a bridge, riding a real live bull, or jumping straight into until death do us part after a less than three month engagement.

Fifteen years ago today I walked down the isle with this man who I thought had the ability to lasso the moon. I saw in him a hard worker, a drive to push himself, a desire to be better, a man that could make me laugh and make me feel safe and protected while with him… whether we have been broke down in Atlanta or walking down the streets of New Orleans, I have never felt the slightest fear with him by my side. And because he was already a daddy… I also got to see how he loved his daughter.

As a believer there have been a lot of challenges that have come with the previous marriage thing. It seems that all sins of a man are forgivable and forgettable in the church except the sin of divorce… whether it was your fault or not… whether you were just a kid trying to do the right thing way back when is irrelevant. However had you not tried the marriage thing and just kept the kid out of wedlock and then years later married only once… that would be okay… because technically then you have only been the husband of one actual wife. So you can be forgiven and serve in a church leadership position after whoring around with as many as you want, just as long as you don’t marry any of them. Am I the only one who doesn’t get this?

Anyway, that was a side trip.

Many don’t know that it was my husband that sat me down and said we need to find a church… I was still a twenty-two year old, only been legal for a year, still wanting to bust up in the club and party girl. When my husband decided that this was not the scene we needed to be involved in… I was just a little disappointed. I mean he was eight years older than me, he had already been doing this a while, I however, was just getting started good… what on earth was he thinking?

I tell you what he was thinking… He WAS thinking.

So we began visiting churches… and within a year or so of attending church sporadically and after delivering our Shelby I found myself at the altar in tears experiencing revival and wholly surrendering my life to Christ… and we officially joined our church. Thanks be to this adulterer 😉

That, my dear beloved of God, is the redemptive work of the grace of God and the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as too late or too far where grace is concerned. The grace of God knows no limits. The grace of God is not bound by the interpretations of man. God can do whatever God wants to do with whoever God wants to do it with whenever God wants to do it.

We can’t make enough bad choices to cancel out the choosing of Christ. We broke all the “rules”, but we couldn’t break the call of God on our lives.

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

John 15:16

 Just a few weeks after our marriage my Mamaw Dot came over for visit. Now remember, my husband was eight years older than me, we were from different ends of the county, and I had only known him a total of a year when we married. As my grandmother walked through our trailor (we started out our marriage in a brand new mobile home that we placed on my parent’s land) checking out my homemaking skills she came to the hall where I had hung family photos… she stopped and said, “Is that Fred and Jannie?”

Now my husband and I had not communicated alot about family that was no longer with us on this earth… I just knew those were his grandparents, I had no clue what their names were. So I hollared down the hall to inquire of Patrick as to his grandparent’s names and well yes, they were indeed Fred and Jannie. Come to find out his grandparents and my great grandparents, now both deceased, were best friends and fishing buddies. My grandmother had grew up with his dad and uncles…

So since then I have always laughed and claimed that our grandparents did some matchmaking in heaven. I can picture them sitting up there in eternity telling the Lord that if He wanted to straighten the two of us out to stick us together, we would either kill each other or live happily ever after.

By the grace of God it’s been happily ever after!
My man posted this photo collage to Facebook early this morning with the caption, “Left, wedding night. Top right, 10 year vow renewal ceremony. Bottom right, 15 years together. You can’t fake those smiles. Happy Anniversary Nicole Halbrooks Vaughn, I love you.”

My goodness I love him!

Fifteen years later and I love him more than I even dreamed was possible. Last night I looked up what the “15th Anniversary” tradition gift was and learned that this is the crystal anniversary year. Makes sense to me. Because after fifteen years with this man, it’s crystal clear that this man was meant for me and me alone. We make an amazing team.

Patrick Vaughn I walked down the isle to you to the song “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” and well you rocked my world then, and you rock it still. I love you so very much and I treasure every moment we have together!

I can’t stand your religious meetings.
    I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
    your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
    your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
    When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
    I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
    That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

Amos 5:21-24, MSG

I think many of us just need to let these words resonate and marinate and penetrate…

Not long ago I was told a story of a pastor of a church. He was a very revered pastor. As a matter of fact the story that was told me was that this man actually had an entourage of deacons that surrounded the man from his office to the pulpit every time before he would preach to make sure no one bothered him before he shared his message with the church.

At the first hearing of the story I thought, that must be nice. Before I go to the “pulpit” to teach I have to deal with at least one to six text messages of people who have decided that they are not coming to church and want me to find them a sub, make a mad dash across the street to the store to refill an empty pantry and fridge that was full when I left Wed night, separate sets of wrestling boys and chattering girls, explain once again the dates, times, and fees of events that I have posted on four bulletin boards, Facebook, the church website and emailed out, and locate materials and supplies that were “borrowed” yet somehow never made it back… and that’s on a good day.

However, the more I thought of this man’s guarded walk from his office to his pulpit… I thought how UNLIKE Christ this display was.

Christ never expected to be un-interrupted and He didn’t allow His disciples to treat Him as though He was too important to be interrupted. As a matter of fact Jesus rebuked them when they tried to do it.

Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:13-14

Jesus always had time for others no matter what mission He was on. Interruptions were opportunities for Him to display His mercy and compassion… and to show that people were more important to Him than agendas. He was after people… not a pulpit.

The Word became flesh to dwell among us… To live right down in the nitty gritty unpredictable chaos of a world fallen and spinning ninety-to-nothing straight into the pits of hell.

In Matthew 9:14-17 we find Jesus right slap dab in the middle of some majorly deep teaching, as He was answering the disciples of John about why they and the Pharisees fasted and the disciples of Jesus did not, when a synagogue official came busting up into the room.

Jesus didn’t give him the hang on just one moment finger, He heard the man out and immediately got up to go to his aid.

While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples.

Matthew 9:18-19

But that’s not all… on His way to raise a young girl from the dead a hurting woman sneaks into the crowd and simply reaches for the hem of His garment… she doesn’t want to cause a scene, doesn’t want to interrupt Him, probably doesn’t feel her problem important enough to concern Him with, or is just simply to humiliated by it all… but when she touches Him, He stops. He didn’t have to. He could have just given her a wink and a thumbs up. She would have been delighted with just that… but instead He stops. He stops and He acknowledges Her worth to Him by the giving of His time and His presence and His eyes. He SEES her.

I can’t help but wonder how long it had been since she had been SEEN?

The story goes on in Matthew 9…

Jesus makes it to the officials house and raises the daughter from the dead and on His way out from there two blind men ask Him for help… He stops and He helps.

As the blind men run out seeing a mute demon-possessed man is brought to Him and Jesus casts the demon out and the man speaks.

Jesus had the most important message in the world to share and He was surrounded by an entourage, but they were not there to keep the people from Him, they were there to learn how to get the people to Him. Jesus welcomed the interruptions… Jesus didn’t just welcome them, He made Himself available for them, He looked for them.

Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36

Can I just say that I have lost count of how many people I have seen come into a church seeking some type of help… they are usually a little dirty, smell like cigarettes, and sometimes alcohol… and people within the church walk by them as though they are not even there.

Because these people scare them, or make them uncomfortable, they pretend to not see them. I am guilty of having found myself wanting to do the same at times… but how dare I.

How. Dare. I. Refuse. To. See.

How dare I treat a soul as though it doesn’t exist simply because I am uncomfortable with the body that it comes in. Yes, this person might be a crook. This person might just be after enough cash to buy there next buzz. This person might have came in with full intentions to harm others in order to get what they want… but so was Judas and Jesus washed his feet.

If the extent of our Christianity is nothing more than religious meetings, conferences and conventions, religion projects, pretentious slogans and goals, fund-raising schemes, public relations and image making… and we just all gather up a couple of times a week for some noisy ego-music… and we call that church. Then we are sad pathetic lot. 

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Matthew 9:37-38

If we are so busy, busy, busy with programs that we don’t have time for God ordained interruptions to display the mercy and compassion of Christ on people… both saved and lost, then we who once were blind and then could see, have now become blind again.

Might our Jesus reach down and have mercy and compassion on His church and give sight to the blind once again.

I am a full blooded American and I hate waiting.

I hate waiting in line to check-out anywhere… however Wal-Mart is the highest of my capability to despise.

I hate waiting at a red light… especially when there is not another vehicle visible for miles.

I hate waiting on a video or a picture to load to a computer or device… that spinning beach ball or arrow makes me want to throw my electronic device on the ground and stomp all over it while I scream out my frustrations.

I hate waiting in line to use the bathroom… the closer you get to your turn the less your post baby delivery ability “to hold it” becomes.

I.

Hate.

Waiting.

The word “wait” is used at least 142 times in the Scriptures according to the NASB. One Hundred. Forty-two. Times.

My life psalm is Psalm 25… the word wait is used three times in this one psalm. Three. Yeh.

In Psalm 25 the Hebrew word for wait is qavah it is a verb that means to wait for but more so probably originally twist, stretch, then of tension of enduring, waiting. 

Well, I can assure you that waiting indeed does does some major twisting in my gut, and definitely stretches my patience, and assuredly does a fantastic job of causing me to endure vast amounts of tension.

The Strong’s Concordance lists it as… gather together, look, patiently, tarry, wait for, on, upon. A primitive root; to bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. Collect; (figuratively) to expect — gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon).

There is a scene in the book/movie Catching Fire where the tributes are first sent to the arena…

Yeh, that one.

There they are standing on that little pedestal waiting. If they jump off too soon they explode and if they jump off too late they explode and even when they do jump off at just the right time, they still have no clue what is next.

That’s what this time of waiting feels like right now.

In April of this year my husband and I both new that the Lord was releasing me from my position as Children’s Ministry Director at our church. We both new the exact moment that this release came. So I sent in my resignation.

However, we had no clue what all was coming next…

We would find ourselves spending the next months with all our apple baskets overturned and our hands up in the air as we teeter tottered on the pedestal of waiting.

Waiting for His Will…

Make me know Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
For You I wait all the day.

Psalm 25:4-5

So though I hate waiting… I love my Lord… so I wait… and we look expectantly for Him and for His direction for our family.

The Lord favors those who fear Him,
Those who wait for His lovingkindness

Psalm 147:11

We wait…

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. 

Isaiah 40:31

We wait because it’s when we run ahead of the Lord that we get weary and lose all our strength and stumble and fall. It’s when we run ahead of the Lord that we find ourselves caught and tangled up and face planted on the ground with no ability to see.

A ride on the wings of an eagle soaring gives us a much better eye view of what’s ahead.

For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

Habukkuk 2:3

***

For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

Isaiah 64:4

So we wait.

We wait for direction for our family in ministry.

We wait for my Daddy-in-Law to regain enough strength to be able to begin chemo treatments to allow him to then undergo a surgery to remove his bladder.

We wait to see if the Lord will move on behalf of my Daddy and use the chemo treatments he is currently undergoing to destroy the lung cancer cells that have recently been discovered in his body.

We wait for a cure to come as my Sister-in-Law continues her battle with liver cancer.

We wait for the day that our Lord will come and redeem and restore our bodies and cancer will no longer be even a cause for concern.

We wait in hope against hope for that glorious day.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Romans 8:23-25

However until that day comes and as we wait… we love.

We love the Lord.

And we love each other.

And we seek to love others to the love of the Lord…

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Jude 1:20-21

…knowing that He will use this waiting for His glory. He will use even this cancer for His glory. He will use us for His glory. For we are His and He is ours… and we wait for His will…

Not our will but His will be done.

I really don’t know when I began this post… I suppose it will show when I finally click “publish”

I have been in a hard place for a while… (I had a whole bunch of added info here… but since I began writing this months ago… that emotion has passed so I deleted it… sorry the juicy stuff got trashed)

However, all of that aside, I know now that my “hard place” was not really because of any of that… but because I had not brought my hurt, my confusion, my anger, my disappointments in prayer to my God. I had not been before the throne of grace to find mercy and help in dealing with these things and therefore I had little mercy and grace to give to myself or others.

We simply cannot give of what we ourselves have not first from God received.

Granted, I have tried hard to not let my emotional junk outwardly show, because I learned a long time ago to obey truth, not my feelings… but my feelings God does see, and He wants grace and mercy to come from my innermost being, not just my outward motions.

What I have realized these past months, is that my “quiet time” had become solely “lesson prep” time… my time in the Word had become purely mechanical to provide food for others. I realized that I was starving myself in order to feed others…

I also realized that I was harboring a lot of stuff and well the way you deal with harbored stuff is to shelter it, and the way you shelter most stuff in order to protect it or hide it, is to throw up walls… and well likewise, in order to protect your heart many times the easiest thing to do is to just throw up a wall. But the problem with walls is that they are hard to see through. They are also hard to love through.

God knew that.

That is why He sent His Son, to tear down the walls, to rip through the dividing wall, to tear the veil that separates… but at the same time He sent Him as an example for us to follow in all things and in all areas of our life.

A balm began to be applied to my heart and soul as I began a study at the beginning of the new year in the book of John and as I have started back at the beginning with reading through His Word.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

John 2:23-25

So this is where I realized I had found myself. A girl who once LOVED going to church… now taking deep breathes before she pulls into the parking lot because she doesn’t know who is going to be upset with her, complain about her, or even compliment her when she doesn’t feel at all worthy to receive compliments and doesn’t know how to respond to them… because deep down what she is hearing is not really a compliment at all, but a “thank God you are doing this because it means I don’t have to“

Yet at the same time, knowing with all that is within her that God has called her… so she keeps pressing forward even though her heart wants to shrink back into the shadows and hide from everyone.

The breath of fresh air that I found in the book of John was timely and needed, reading how Jesus was accused of having a demon, of judging others unlawfully, of being a false teacher, of leading others astray… well it is a wave of relief to this girl who truly tries with all her heart to be faithful to her God and to speak truth, and live truth, and love in and with truth… but still stumbles, falls, and fails with the best of them… and has been accused, slandered, and even threatened by those who do not even know her.

As I studied through the book of John again… it was nice to be reminded that I was not alone.

However, as soon as I began to breath, the suffocation began again.

A new and different journey begins for me and my family today… the journey of releasing… and learning to once again to try and just breathe.

Some seasons in life are down right hard…

My family is in one of those seasons. We came through a very rough season in 2010 and here we are 2014 and we find ourselves in another one. I’ve been spending every morning in the Psalms… because that is just where you go when you need to be reminded that it is okay to wrestle with God and with emotions and with decisions, and with just life in general. Today I am in Psalm 65. It’s the 5th day of the sixth month and so today I breathe in the words of this song of David…