Monthly Archives: November 2013

Proven Path Ministries

It’s All Him

PPM-3.jpg

 

Yesterday I stood to teach during our chapel time at co-op and I felt as though I had never taught before. It was as if the Spirit of God had left me and I stood their naked and exposed and powerless. I could not focus. I could not remember where the points were I had felt the Lord had led me to draw out from the verses we were going to be digging into… I was lost.

My heart was pounding, my mouth went dry, my mind was blank and I was trying not to panic and just run out of the room.

I stood there trying to teach and hold back embarrassed tears at the same time… I have not felt that all over the place in a very long time. I wanted to hide. I actually thought right then that the Lord was through with me and had removed His Spirit and anointing from me right then. Confusion gripped my heart as I went before my God in my heart… and questioned what was happening? Was I under attack? Had I not adequately planned? Is this the results of something that is going on in my body right now? Had I failed Him? Had I missed Him? Self-condemnation commenced…

I am supposed to teach at a ladies retreat tomorrow night… and in all honesty I have felt so “out of it” for the past few weeks that I am nervous in a way that I have not been in a long time.

I am not sure if people really understand how terrifying and out of character speaking in front of a crowd is for me. It is only by and through the grace of God and the indwelling power and authority of His Holy Spirit that I am able. It is His gift not my ability. Every time I have ever taught I am reminded of His presence, because I cannot do this apart from Him. The moments, like what I experienced Monday, always serve as a potent reminder to me that it is not in me to teach this most holy Word from this Most Holy God.

I am beyond unworthy to speak in His name.

As I sat here tonight with my girls and watched the Billy Graham special, My Hope America, my heart ached. I am reminded again and again that I will never get over His forgiveness. I will never get over His sacrifice. I will never get over His mercy. I will never get over His desire for me. Me. This woman who lived in outright rebellion to Him and His commands. This woman who used His name in vain and lived life in vain.

My heart swells and becomes so full with emotion that it feels like it will burst within my chest when I think of Him and His cross… I can’t explain what washes over me when I think of what He went through just for me…

This afternoon my girls and I watched A Knight’s Tale with Heath Ledger… I kept the remote with me so as to skip over the parts that showed the guys backside and the part where Jocelyn comes in the night to William… I began the fast forward and my Bekah said, Momma I would never do what she is doing that is making you to have to fast forward this… Momma, you wouldn’t do that either would you… you haven’t done that have you?  

For the first time ever, I could not answer her. Hot shame washed over me anew and I avoided the question that I will answer one day… I just can’t bear to answer it today… not after The Day I Hated Came and her heart was broken just from the knowledge that I did not walk with Christ until I was 24 years old.

My heart breaks for those who think the choices they are making today will not go with them into tomorrow. If you ever think I am “judging” you do not know me at all. It is not a heart of judgment that comes before you, but a heart that knows the love of Christ and loves Him and you too much too allow you to walk down a path of death when life is HIS WAY.

Billy Graham shared in his message to America that the cross is offensive because it demands, it doesn’t suggest, it DEMANDS a new lifestyle. He also shared that the cross of Christ is offensive, but the cross is a confrontation that all of us must face.

I experienced the offensiveness of the cross… and I experienced it demand to change… I realized fully at the age of 24 that the Word of God was not a suggestion for how to live… it was LIFE.

So I don’t teach and I don’t write and I don’t post and I don’t blog and I don’t call out so that others will “like” me or my “stuff”. It’s not so anyone will ever look at me… there really is not much to see… I just want you to know Jesus. The real Jesus. Not this “Jesus” that many people make such a mockery of as they claim to be working for Him…

For there are many rebellious men, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision, who must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families, teaching things they should not teach for the sake of sordid gain.

Titus 1:10-11

I want to share with you the Jesus who is in the Word and of the Word and is the Word. I don’t want to spout out ridiculous cliches or promise you empty blessings and seven steps that supposedly God has “only revealed to me”… that should be a red flag right there. I just want to bring you to Jesus and teach you what He has recorded for us in His Scriptures. No seven steps to blessings needed, just one step toward Christ. Just one step of faith at a time…

If God has to give me moments like last Monday to keep me in this place of utter humility then by all means I will take them… If He has to pull back and let me be reminded what emptiness would be in my heart if He were not there, then by all means pull away from me… I come before Him and lay at the foot of His cross and look up to His throne of His grace ready to be stripped of all self-righteousness and pride. Reminded that I am not here to show what all I know… but only WHO I KNOW.

I came empty handed to this mercy tree and all I have to offer anyone is what was offered me… Jesus.

Confessions of a Christian Wife, Proven Path Ministries

Thankful for Motherhood

PPM-3.jpg

 

It’s November and I have been posting my “thankful fors” on my FB page, Proven Path Ministries. You can follow them all there. I would love for you to “like” my page.

Today I shared that I am thankful for motherhood. As I was pondering my thankfulness for motherhood I remembered this verse…

“But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.”

1 Timothy 2:15

I have always found this verse in Scripture pretty interesting, so today I thought I would dig a little deeper into it. The word “self-restraint” in this verse is sóphrosuné in the Greek and it means soundness of mind, sanity; self-control, sobriety. I literally laughed out loud when I read the Greek definition of this verse. Why? Well let me tell you that I cannot count the times that I have said…

“Y’all are driving me insane!” 
“I am about to lose my mind!” 
“They are making me crazy!” 
“I can’t even complete a thought without somebody interrupting me!” 
“Do you think that I am stupid and have no clue what you are doing?” 
“Do you not understand the words that are coming out of my mouth?”
“I’m going to kill them!” 

Raising children will teach you things about yourself that you otherwise would have self-righteously denied until your dying breath. I remember the day I realized that I understood how that woman could put herself and her kids in that car and drive them off that bridge. I remember the moment I realized that I could empathize with that one on trial for shaking their child…

It was the night that after 4 month of only sleeping in 45 minute increments and still trying to work part time while my husband had been away on business in another country for a month that at 3 o’clock in the morning I laid my not sleeping EVER! beautiful baby girl in the floor and went to the bathroom and cried and screamed and in the depths of utter frustration kicked a whole in my bathroom wall.

I then realized that I had “lost it”. I went into the living room, grabbed the still smiling but not sleeping EVER! beautiful baby girl and wrapped her in a blanket, and walked to my parents house at 3 o’clock in the morning in heaping sobs. I proceeded to walk in their door, up their stairs, and into their bedroom, and still in uncontrollable sobs handed my scared to death mother my still smiling but not sleeping EVER! beautiful baby girl. My mother in a huge breathe of relief that the bundle I handed her was still breathing sent me to bed and took on the baby duty.

When I returned to my parents house that night after working an all day volleyball tournament… guess who was still awake and only had a twenty minute nap during the day… yes, my still smiling but not sleeping EVER! beautiful baby girl.

Motherhood has taught me more about the grace and mercy and love of God than any preacher ever could. The words of Scripture have been clung to more than I can wrap my mind around as I held on to them for hope in just me maintaining my sanity through another day.

“But women will be preserved” in this verse is sōthēsetai in the Greek and it means she will be saved.

So personally I believe we can read 2 Timothy 1:15 like this: I will be saved through raising children if I can do this thing continuing in faith, love, holiness, and without losing my mind in the process!

The word “continue” is menó in the Greek and it means I remain, abide, stay, wait, live, endure, last. 

The word “faith” is pistis in the Greek and it means faith, belief, trust, confidence; fidelity, faithfulness.

The word “love” is agapé in the Greek and it is a purely Biblical and ecclesiastical word. I love what the Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary says about agape:

“God Is Love.”Agape [ 1 John 4:8 ). God does not merely love; he islove. Everything that God does flows from his love.

John emphasizes repeatedly that God the Father loves the Son (John 5:20 ; 17:23,26 ) and that the Son loves the Father (John 14:31 ). Because the Father loves the Son, he made his will known to him. Jesus in turn demonstrated his love to the Father through his submission and obedience.

The theme of the entire Bible is the self-revelation of the God of love. In the garden of Eden, God commanded that “you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die” (Genesis 2:17 ). We are not prepared, then, when God looks for Adam after his sin, calling out “Where are you?” God seeks Adam, not to put him to death, but to reestablish a relationship with him. God, the Lover, will not allow sin to stand between him and his creature. He personally bridges the gap…

We are totally incapable of loving either God or others—a condition that must be corrected by God before we canlove. The Bible’s ways of describing this process of correction are numerous: “circumcision of the heart” (Deuteronomy 30:6 ); God’s “writing his laws” on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:33 ); God’s substituting a “heart of flesh” for a “heart of stone” (Ezekiel 11:19 ); being “born again” by the Spirit (John 3:3 ; 1 John 5:1-2 ); removing old clothing and replacing it with new (Colossians 3:12-14 ); dying to a sinful life and resurrecting to a new one (Colossians 3:1-4 ); moving out of darkness into light (1 John 2:9 ). Until that happens, we cannot love.

God alone is the source of love (1 John 4:7-8 ); he “poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Romans 5:5 ). God’s love then awakens a response in those who accept it. Godloves through believers, who act as channels for his love; they are branches who must abide in the vine if they are to have that love (John 15:1-11 ).

The word “sanctity” is hagiasmos in the Greek and it means the process of making or becoming holy, set apart, sanctification, holiness, consecration. It’s the use of the believer being progressively transformed by the Lord into His likeness.

Motherhood, whether through adoption, marriage, or bearing them from our own bodies, will bring a woman to the cross of Christ quicker and with more fervency than anything else on this earth ever could. God will use it to mold us into the image of His Son in a way that blows our mind. As I remain faithful in this mom thing, as I endure all things and wait on my children to “get it” as I just keep doing what God has called me to do and facing everything that He brings to me and remember that this whole sanctity and holiness thing is a process and not a one stop shop then I can press on and not lose my sanity over the reality of it all.

When I read God seeks Adam, not to put him to death, but to reestablish a relationship with him. God, the Lover, will not allow sin to stand between him and his creature. He personally bridges the gap… in the Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary I thought about how this should relate to me as a mother. I should never allow sin to come between me and my children if I really claim to love them… whether it be my sin or theirs. It is my responsibility as the mother to be the one who makes the move to bridge the gap that sin makes in my family. I am also reminded that I cannot love my children with agape love apart from God… I HAVE to have Him deposit this love within me first before I can love my children with it… any other type of “love” will end up being a perversion and not beneficial to the health and eternal life of my children.   

So yes I am thankful for motherhood… it has taught me much… about my God, myself, and what it means to love without condition and it has also taught me what it means to be loved without condition. 

my motherhood