There’s a radio station that my family listens to that plays classic country and bluegrass… and there is this one song that plays and I cannot listen to it with out my eyes welling up and my heart rising into my throat… it’s called Young Love by The Judds.

The line that says, they’re gonna make it through the hard times, walk those lines, yeah these ties will bind young love… that’s where it gets me every time… I hear those words and my eyes begin to well with tears and I look over at my husband and see that his are doing the same…

…and then when it says, well, from that day on you couldn’t keep them apart, they were side by side, heart to heart…

My husband and I have been together going on sixteen years… and within those sixteen years we have never gone one full day without talking to one another… even if we were oceans apart… and even if we were spittin’ mad at one another…

…and then finally the words, and that night as he held her he couldn’t believe, that God had made a girl that he’d never ever leave… I knew this the first time my husband held me in his arms… that he was different from anyone I had ever known before… when I looked into his eyes I saw my future and when I was held by him I felt protected and safe and I wanted to stay in His arms from that day on. To this very day when he wraps me up in the strength of his arms and I close my eyes and bury my head in his chest and breath in his scent it doesn’t matter what else is going on around us I find that we are, for that small moment, in our own little world just me, him, and God… that three cord strand tightly woven.

The years that would follow that first time would come with some very hard times… but just as the song sings, it has been the hard times that have made the ties that bind. It has been the hard times that God has used to dig deep into our prideful stubborn selfish selves and refine us with fire… and this fire has been like a welders fire.

Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material (the weld pool) that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes used in conjunction with heat, or by itself, to produce the weld.

~ Wikipedia

As we walked through the fire, it was hot and it was fierce, but as the fire melted away those parts of us that needed to go, God was faithful to pour into us the fire of His Spirit that unites and bonds and as the fire cooled we found that we were even stronger than ever before. Joined together through the heat and the pressure, no longer two… but one.

I have no doubt that both of us have at times gone toe to toe with our demons and God allowed them access to us so that he might use them to destroy the deep rooted sin and fears in us… to tear down walls that we had built to protect us… yet our God never left us defenseless. He had given us His Spirit and His Word.

But now, thus says the Lord, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
“Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name; you are Mine!
“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And through the rivers, they will not overflow you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched,
Nor will the flame burn you.
“For I am the Lord your God,
The Holy One of Israel, your Savior;

Isaiah 43:1-3

I look at this man that I fell head over heels for sixteen years ago and I believe and trust in him more today than I even imagined that I could when I first said “I do“. As I have watched God transform him before my eyes and have had the privilege of growing up with him… I can’t help but smile… and it’s a heart smile… a smile that warms my soul as I see in our lives the beautiful testimony of the power of the gospel and the grace of God. His mercies really are new every morning and His lovingkindness really does endure forever and He really can change hearts and minds and redeem souls and He really does hear us when we pray and love really never fails.

Love… bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails

1 Corinthians 13:7-8

The title of this post is a quote from Imaginary Jesus. It’s a pretty good book… I have shared about it before here on my blog (Communion). The title of this post came from King-James Jesus after he kidnapped the talking donkey in order to bargain for her to rescue Magic-Eight-Ball Jesus.

When I was teaching Zoology at our Monday Co-op as we were learning about Ungulates and as we looked at the order Perissodactyla we discussed the donkey. As I prepared to teach I read:

Although donkeys have long been considered ignorant, they are actually quite intelligent creatures. They are not as easy to train as horses, because they seem to have a mind of their own and will not do anything that doesn’t seem like a good idea to them. They prefer to do things that are good for the donkey, which may not necessarily be good for the person who owns the donkey.
~ Apologia Exploring Creation with Zoology 3

Reading this reminded me that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey. I have been taught and have understood that Jesus chose a donkey because it was a poor man’s animal. It was not a king’s steed. It also was to fulfill the Scriptures. I believe all this is true… but I also now think that their might even have been more to the story.

Why the donkey?

Well if you think about it… we as humans can be stupid as a sheep and stubborn as a donkey. Not only was this a donkey, but it was a colt. It was immature, unridden, untrained…

I read this and I think of the description of this donkey and I realize how often I have been there. You know having a mind of my own and not willing to listen to instruction and not planning on doing anything that didn’t seem like a good idea to me…

I mean really, like anyone else might have a good idea?

How often do we see this in our church and in our homes?

No, sir, we need to go in this direction and your opinion of the matter is really irrelevant because it’s not what I personally had planned… so there is no point in even entertaining it…

No, honey, this is the way we need to do it and your idea on the matter doesn’t line up with mine and there is no way that your way could be better than mine… so just hush about it…

The donkey is always looking out for the donkey and he is not all that fired up or concerned about how it affects everyone else… including the one who owns him.

Hmmmmm am I hitting home yet?

The last time I checked my body, my mind, my soul, all belong to God… not me. When I accepted Christ and believed on Him and confessed Him as my Lord, I surrendered all that I am and ever will be to Him.

In light of this when was the last time you considered what was best for God, your owner. I have to admit that usually when I plan out my day, my future, when I get ideas… the majority of the time the focus is what is best for me. I consider what will work best in my schedule and with the way that I want it to go…

Then I ask God to make it to happen.

How quickly I forget “Thine ass is Mine”

My life is not my own and it is not to be used for my glory or my benefit. Just as that donkey in the book of Matthew carried Jesus into Jerusalem, I am to be the carrier of Jesus the Christ into my Jerusalem, and Jesus is to lead and direct the way.

Likewise, in my home, my marriage, I am no longer my own.

 

In this marriage I am not to live to  myself. My ideas, my decisions, should not be based on what’s best for me, but what is best for my spouse and our marriage and our family. It’s not about me. I belong now to this marriage and to this family, to my husband… I am not my own and I must make decisions according to what is best for them… not just me.

Of course here’s the thing, I can’t do this on my own. I need Jesus there to control the reigns. As I carry the coverings of others on my back He must be the one who covers all of us… I can’t do it on my own.

I am immature, untrained, and unridden. My ideas, my way, may not be the best for others… usually they are not.

I am ingrained to resist authority and to seek my own personal wants and needs first in a self-protection kind of way. I have to have Christ leading me, growing me, steering me, indwelling me.

When I surrender my will to Him, He will help me surrender my will in the other areas of my life as well.

Matthew 26:39

Living our lives with surrendered will does not mean that life will be a bed of roses for us… but it’s not about us. It’s about Him.

We have to trust that He knows what He is doing, where He is going, and He will see us safely there and through whatever comes our way. We must know that what lies ahead is going to be far greater than anything that lies behind.

I want this stubborn donkey of me to be broken, matured, and trained by my Owner, by the One who first surrendered all for me…

I want to be fully surrendered to Him.

It’s been a while since I have read through the Bible from beginning to end. I am in the Word daily, but this is different… reading through the whole Book allows you to keep the Scriptures in context and it also allows the Holy Spirit to bring truth to remembrance when you need it from an area in the Bible that usually you just don’t spend a lot of time in… like Nahum. I mean if you can quote a Scripture verse off the top of your head from this book, stop now, and scroll down to the comment box and type it in 😉

I can’t remember who Nahum was or what He wrote… so that means it’s time for me to renew my mind because God no doubt had something important to say through him or he would not be in The Book.

This year I am reading through the Scriptures chronologically, which is the Bible in the order of time in which the events occurred. Yesterday my readings were Genesis 1-3. Earlier that morning I wrote a blog post entitled Speaking from Experience. Within this post is a fifteen minute video of the “older women” of my church. The purpose of the video was to interview these ladies and have them share their wisdom with the “younger women” in our church, you know, fleshing out Titus 2.

I am a firm believer that if we ladies need marital or parenting advice we need not seek it from other young women, but from the “older women” who have the wisdom to guide us with truth and not shared emotion. I am afraid that sometimes we younger women might advice each other to do things we secretly wish we could do ourselves because we might be in the same hard place yet we won’t because we know deep down we can’t or shouldn’t. The whole vicarious living through thing.

Anyway…

I began my chronological read through in Genesis 1-3, and of course those chapters perfectly coincided with where my heart had been that morning… the family… specifically being a wife who loved her husband and loved her children with God’s love, not because I feel like it love. As I read through these chapters I was reminded of God’s ordained plan for me and what sin did to wreck it. I re-read once again the curse upon we women…

To the woman He said,
“I will greatly multiply
Your pain in childbirth,
In pain you will bring forth children;
Yet your desire will be for your husband,
And he will rule over you.” 

Genesis 3:16

Now before I read these verses in Genesis, but after I wrote the blog post that morning… Satan tried to trip me. I have learned that anytime I speak out on any subject, I can guarantee that the opportunity for me to put my money where my mouth is or walk my talk is no doubt going to happen.

If you follow my blog, you know that I have been sick for a while… I have been running a fever all this past week and just feel like cruddy ole crud… and my husband also has not been well, but he had to go to work yesterday anyway. So as I looked out the window at the sunshine and knew that the weather was giving me the perfect opportunity to remove the outside Christmas decorations, I decided to pull myself up off the couch and get a shower and get to work.

In the meantime, my husband came home early from work, in order to attend his Uncle’s visitation service. I came down the stairs, showered and dressed, with an arm load of laundry to start, and planning to get busy removing the last of Christmas 2013 from our house. As I walk by my husband he looks at me and says something like, it’s really beautiful outside today, why don’t you get outside and do something and get some fresh air, I think it will help you feel better.

Remember that this was the very reason I had gone upstairs to shower and dress, but the moment he said that my flesh rose up in rebellion and I just looked at him with I am sure a not so nice look, because he then said, or just go sit outside in the sun for a bit, I didn’t mean you had to work, I just thought the fresh air would do you good.

Oh my how quickly that curse jumps upon us! My first thought to his suggesting me doing what I had already planned to do was to not do it just because he suggested it… why on earth is that? SIN that’s why…ugh, how aggravating it is!

All these thoughts are running through my head and my flesh is crawling up my throat, but I remembered what I earlier wrote and thought about what I would read later and I took a deep breath and instead said, well that’s what I went upstairs to get showered and dressed for… but my flesh still fought hard for control, because before I went outside to tackle the decorations, I opened the back door to let fresh air in, but still piled back up on my love-seat sick bed and covered up in my blankets, because I could justify that action with the fact that I really did feel like cruddy ole crud and I was having to push through that to even get a shower. Needless to say, it took me a little wrestling with my flesh and the Spirit for me to actually attack those decorations.

How quickly it became less about getting some fresh air and taking advantage of some sunshine and more about being obedient to the Word of God and honoring and loving my husband.

There it was staring me in the face… Genesis 3:16 and Ephesians 5:22-24… Friend, have you been there?

“But what do you think? A man had two sons, and he came to the first and said, ‘Son, go work today in the vineyard.’ And he answered, ‘I will not’; but afterward he regretted it and went. The man came to the second and said the same thing; and he answered, ‘I will, sir’; but he did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” 

Matthew 21:28-31

 

 

One of the burdens that I have on my heart is for the family… for children… for marriages. The Word of God is very clear that in the last days love will grow cold.

Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. ~ Jesus (Matthew 24:12-13)

But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power… (2 Timothy 3:1-5)

One of the reasons for divorce in our day is irreconcilable differences… this ought not to be so in Christian marriages because we have been given the ministry of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5:16-20).

I fear we live in a day when many have a form of godliness but they have denied its power… as wives and mothers our first working out of our own salvation (Philippians 2:12-21) should be demonstrated within our homes before our husbands and our children. If we cannot speak truth and live out love with them then what we speak and portray before others is hypocrisy. If we cannot live a life without grumbling or disputing within the walls of our home then we really never will in the world…

If we cannot love our husbands and love our children with the love of Christ… then we have never loved at all. If we cannot apply Matthew 5:42-47, Luke 6:35-36, and Romans 12:9-21 to the members of our own house then we are fake if we say we offer it to others.

In this day it’s more popular, even in the “church”, to forsake those that cause us grief rather than to choose to love them in spite of it. When someone cramps our style or makes us feel uncomfortable instead of asking ourselves why this is and asking God how we can learn to love them we just “unfriend” them or write a vague status concerning them or walk out on them or send them to their rooms or cheer when school starts back and we don’t have to deal with them.

It’s easy to show love and feel all “Christian” when it’s just you and a keyboard. But how’s it working out when real live breathing souls are around? This is where we find out if we really trust God… this is where faith is walked by and grace is displayed.

As a new year approaches I pray that we women, we wives, we mothers, will resolve to love our husbands and to love our children and to work out our salvation before them.

If you struggle in this area… it’s time to be real before someone… preferably someone who is wiser, who has been there and done that… and is not afraid to speak truth into you… I suggest you share your struggles with someone who can speak from experience… and if you are that one who can speak from experience… please know that we younger wives and mothers… we desperately need you in this day. So please don’t be silent. Don’t be shy. Don’t think we don’t want to hear what you have to say… even if we act like we don’t… we need you.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good, so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored.

Titus 2:3-5

Speaking from Experience from Shiloh Baptist Church on Vimeo.

The word of God has been dishonored enough in our day… let us be the generation that remembers that it is holy and good and profitable and worthy of our obedience to it and to Him. Don’t let your love grow cold… keep it hot and on fire… for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29). Let His fire refine you and ignite you to love with a love that burns deep and sears the hearts of those around you. Let us love with a love that melts away all deceit and hypocrisy and let us love with real faithful Jesus love. A love that remembers that He gives His Spirit without measure (John 3:34) and if we are truly sent by Him we will speak like Him, live like Him, and love like Him… and let us begin with our husbands and with our children.

Last year was crazy for my family. To look back on our calendar is almost embarrassing. Our days and weeks and months were so packed that it took us over a month past our middle child’s birthday to even find an open date to celebrate. However at the same time 2013 was good… crazy busy… but still good.

My husband and I set some financial goals several years ago and we met them in this year. In 2013 we paid off two vehicles and a land loan and saved all our Christmas spendings… this is the second year in a row that we have charged nothing in order to purchase Christmas gifts for our family. We now have three paid for vehicles in our driveway (yes they may have 100,000 miles on them, but they are paid for) and our plan for this year is to pay down one last line of credit that remains from the financial issues that hit us from 2006 through 2010.

God has been faithful.

What I learned through these years of struggles is that there are no shortcuts and when someone offers you good advice… take it.

A wise man will hear and increase in learning,
And a man of understanding will acquire wise counsel,

Proverbs 1:5

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes,
But a wise man is he who listens to counsel.

Proverbs 12:15

 

My family is not all that big on resolutions. We just keep taking one day at a time. We have life goals and all the years just seem to run together. The days and weeks and hours are hard for us to keep up with. My husband works a swing shift and we homeschool so our “Friday’s” can be any day of the week. Our “weekends” are not tied to Saturday and Sunday. Schedules in this house are examined and adjusted quite frequently. Regular routines really don’t happen here and that’s because too many things have to be shuffled according to who has what commitments where and when.

As a matter of fact our life was so tightly scheduled in 2013 with all its “stuff” that opportunity for spontaneity was non-existent.

This made me crazy… really almost crazy.

By the end of 2013 I was in tears with my husband as I broke down over the way the past year had played out. My health was declining and my mind was blown. I couldn’t even complete a sentence or remember what I was doing as I walked from one room into the next. I had watched several loved ones say their last goodbyes to husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, friends, sisters… and all I could think about was how precious time is… and how I never had enough of it.

It was as if my whole life was just going from one event to the next… my concern of taking on the position of Children’s Ministry Director at my church was losing my own relationship with Christ. In October I went to a conference and one of the quotes I wrote down was, “Is the work I am doing for God destroying the work of God in me?”

I have to say this past year the answer to that question for me feels like yes…

So 2014 must be different.

I cannot be so busy doing the work of the Lord that I forget the Lord of the work (another quote from the conference)

I was full when I began this call, but this year ended with me empty… completely poured out… and weary.

This last month has been spent on the couch… having been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis and having to have my husband and children literally carry me out of places due to the lack of my own ability to walk and also having sickness with a cough, fever, and congestion.

Our family will bring in the new year with antibiotics and cough medicine… but we will still bring it in together… and that’s what is important.

The past month of sickness has given me the opportunity to just rest. I have not set an alarm clock with the exception of Sunday mornings this entire month… but also in not doing so my “quiet time” with the Lord and my writing time has suffered. I had planned to do a lot of writing this month on Devotions From Exodus Part Two… but this body has not allowed it.

I debate almost daily on dropping this blog and social media thing and going back to the days of keeping all my thoughts and prayers safely tucked away in my spiral notebooks… it doesn’t make anyone mad there and I never flip back through the pages to see if anyone “liked” it, but so far I keep pecking away on this keyboard… hoping that with it someone will be served, encouraged, exhorted, reproofed, rebuked, taught, strengthened, or maybe even just made flat out mad by the realization that someone cared enough to “judge them” and force them to look at something in a different way.

As I stare at 2014 from the view point of my living room loveseat sickbed… I ponder how to do things better… allowing room for spontaneity and interruptions… because too often those are the God moments we miss because it’s not in our plans. I want our life to be open enough to go when He says go, to not quench the prompting of the Holy Spirit because we have to be somewhere at a certain time… but at the same time not to live aimlessly with no purposeful intentions.

I look at my girls and I know that we are over half-way on our opportunity to teach them and love them in the way this space of time allows us. It won’t be long that they will be out making their own choices and living with the consequences of them… I know that at any point and time what my husband and I teach them can become irrelevant to them. At any time the enemy could snatch their attention away from us and lead them into darkness. At any time… so that means we have to take advantage of this time, this day, this moment. This is our opportunity to build them up and train them and cover them in the armor of God before we shoot them into this world to be an example of Christ.

So for 2014… my goal is to slow down and be more here, just here.

I started out my blogging days sharing my own personal trials and struggles… as I have blogged further my blog has transformed more into a teaching blog with an occasional “here’s where I am today” post. It’s not that I have become less insecure in myself, or have felt the need to become private… it’s just that it’s the turn this ride has taken.

I have realized that the world knowing my opinion on all things is not really relevant to anyone’s spiritual growth… if anything it can be the cause of someone’s stunted growth. I just want to teach the Word… most of my blog posts high word count is due to quoted Scripture… unfortunately this means they usually don’t go viral… most people had rather spread one person condemning another… like the mother posting the pictures of her half-naked sons while she condemns the girls who post themselves half naked… or the woman who is giving marital advice after only being married for a year… spreading like wildfire I tell ya!

However I do have my own opinions about things, and well also, I have learned that there are just a few things in this world that I could just care less about… and so after my disclosure about how I rarely post stuff like this anymore… here I go posting it. Here’s my letter to “the world”.

Dear World,

I am a Christian. I understand that you have been given some crazy examples of me throughout the years. I doubt I can clear them all up in this letter, but let me just try to clarify a few things. First of all, I loved you. I mean I really loved you. I craved everything you had to offer me. The fame, the money, the success. I desired your ocean views, your mountain tops, your white sand of the deserts, even your jungles… I mean welcome to the jungle, you got fun and games…

You see I liked the idea of having someone do everything for me, however I still didn’t want anyone telling me what to do. That’s what it meant to conquer you. I had to be on top of you, looking down on everyone and everything else. Everyone would wait on me and I would treat people however I liked and no one would say a word. They would watch me spiral down into the depths of depravity and addiction before anyone every tried to tell me what to do, think, or feel… as long as I was helping them on their pursuit to conquer you too. Then the kicker would be to smile down on all the little people below me, the ones worshipping me, screaming my name, with my best “oh you guys just make my life complete” smile and wave from your stage. I might have to deny my dignity, but it would be okay because you would give me power.

I had no problem with your Playboy, strip joints, or porn shows. I had no concern about the sacredness of anything, no problems with homosexuality, divorce, shacking-up, I mean really what was the big deal. I had no qualms against abortion, after all its better to be dead than unwanted… right?

Right?

Yes, that’s what I thought. It was better to be dead… than unwanted. So today as a Christian, I realize it was never really about you World. It was about being wanted. I thought you would provide that for me, but you always left me… well… wanting. The problem wasn’t you, it was me… and no, I am sorry, we can’t be friends.

You see I have learned that you are one big pot stirrer. I also have learned that you bear false witness a lot. I mean the only Christians I remember ever learning about from you were the Crusaders who killed people, those mass leaders who made people drink poisoned kool-aid, and those weird acting men on tv shows who got caught cheating on their wives.

But one day this crazy thing happened.  I decided that I would stop listening to what you had to say… and I would find out what was in this book called the Holy Bible for myself. You would not believe the stuff that is in that book! I found out that those Crusaders, and mass leaders, and weird acting tv show guys didn’t line up with what this book said a Christian was… I was perplexed to say the least.

Then one day it happened… I was wanted. Wanted in a way that I had never known before. Wanted by Someone who was able to call out to me from, and in a place, that I didn’t even know existed. It was wild. It was the most real thing that I have ever experienced. I died right there. Everything about you in me died. My eyes were opened to who you really were… and that’s why I am telling you we just can’t be friends.

However I still live here for now… and please don’t think I have not noticed you trying to flirt with me. I see it, I really do. You do not go unnoticed by me. Please know that it is really hard to not flirt back, but you see I just love my Jesus to much to hurt Him like that.

The truth is sometimes your flirting, just flat out makes me furious. Sometimes its easier to fight your beckoning in anger… so I lash out and tell everyone how you and everyone in you are going to hell… and well, although that’s kind of true, your actually going to just be obliterated and replaced, but it’s not really very kind of me to get all fired up and mean about it. It doesn’t really help me to reach others in you who have been just as blinded by your sirens song as I was once.

So here are a few things…

I really don’t care whether you wish me a Happy Holidays or a Merry Christmas. I don’t really care if you offer big sales on Thanksgiving. These are your holidays after all. God didn’t give them to me. Jesus never asked me to remember Him in this way… so go ahead make my day. Sale away! I mean I won’t be there for the sales, because people generally are just not at their best after overeating and no sleeping… I kind of see the worst of you on those days… and it just makes me sad.

Oh and by the way, I really find it funny when you try to tell me how I should talk to you and what I should never say to you… it really makes me, l-o-l. Although I find it very hard to not get defensive when you write books and make “documentaries” about my Jesus that are so fabricated that it is on the verge of insanity. However I have watched my Jesus, and He never defended Himself… so I am learning to only speak when it benefits Him, not me… and the truth always rises to the top.

I really do despise the way you have sexualized everything. I mean what does a cheeseburger have to do with a female’s behind. I find this to be the most accurate picture of modern day whoredom.. and I have the hardest time maintaining any speck of respect for any female who does these commercials or any person who says they are a Christian and still gives God’s money to buy these cheeseburgers which in turn is used to make these ads

The truth is World… I understand where you are at. I get it. I get that all those who are of you are blinded by you… well you are going to do what you are going to do because it’s your nature. I get that. The thing is I really just get the most ticked… at those who use my name… but crawl into bed with you. Here is where I have to bite my tongue almost off. I mean I can roll my eyes at you…. but them I want to choke.

I really struggle with the ones who claim to love Jesus one day, but then on the next day they are boasting on social media about how they are forsaking their family to meet their own selfish desires… and then to read all the “you go girl” comments about it… I am sorry that you have to see things like that. I am sorry that it is people who use my name that gives you the most ammunition against my Jesus. I also really struggle with the people who lie about their pastors and use the Word of my God as their reason to walk out of their marriages and then all of a sudden portray to have some awesome insightful relationship with God… it’s quite misconstruing to you, I get that, I really do.

I understand that when you see us join in with those forsaking their children and leaving their raising and learning completely up to you so that we can accumulate more and more and more of your goods… I mean storage building are popping up like wildflowers all over the sides of the roads, because we just can’t hold all our stuff in these little 1000+ square feet houses. I can see how that could be a little confusing to you.

Oh and yes I know… you have given it to us… and we love it… but college football. I know, I know, I know… yes I am writing to you from Alabama. Yes I see how all day Saturday, you sit and scroll down the newsfeed as people tear each other apart, accusing, ridiculing, cussing, slandering, exaggerating, getting flat out spitting mad at each other over a game. I mean they have stats memorized from 50 years back… but if you were to ask them how to be saved… they couldn’t quote you one Scripture. Yes, I do see you shaking your head in agreement, but they do usually always disclose by the end of the night after they have said their piece that God is #1. They do have to see these people in “Big Church” the next day, you know.

I mean I watch these commentators act so serious as they talk about how many yards so and so stretched out… now don’t get me wrong, I really like football… I used to be the hugest fan… I still cheer my favorite team on, when I get a chance to watch the game, but for me I found it was hard to follow Jesus and be a good wife and a good mother and still try to keep up with who was number 10. There is only so much room in my brain, and knowing the line up on this years team was not going to help me teach the doctrine of salvation to a dead soul.

I know what you are thinking… if they could just take this same passion and use it in ways that actually matter we would so kick your butt. I mean if we poured that money, time, and effort into helping orphans and widows and reaching real hurting people… you would be out of business because people would be so in love with the REAL Jesus… they could no longer be satisfied with the glitter of your fake reality… my goodness… a Christian can only dream.

I could go on, I really could, but I think I will close it up… once again I am way over the current word number for the recommended attention span of todays readers and there is no commercial break… oops, there’s another one. It just kind of slipped on out there. Forgive me.

Well, World, in closing, just let me say that it had been fun, I mean really parts of you were an absolute blast… but the more I got to know you, the less I liked you and the deeper in you I went the less I liked me… and well now that I see you through the eyes of a Christian, you break my heart. You see, my God so loved those in you that He sent His Only Begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him might have eternal life. That is something you can never offer anyone. Your pleasures are short and fleeting and they will never satisfy.

I truly am sorry for the way so many have misrepresented my name. Some of them were just ignorant, some just needed to spend more time getting to know Jesus and probably after they did have felt rotten about how they spoke or acted in their ignorance (I know I can say that about myself). However the truth is, not everyone who says they are me… are really me.

If you really want to get to know me… you have to read about my Namesake. You have to learn about Him and you have to learn about His Father and His Holy Spirit… and you really need to just go ahead and start at the beginning. Let Him know that you are interested in finding out the truth about Him. You have to put away all of us who say that we are Christians, because the truth is, we simply do not always represent Him very well at all.  You will understand all this much better if you ever get to really know Him yourself. The struggle of being called by His name when you really are of Him will all of a sudden make perfect sense to you. You will learn to depend on and to often extend to others this thing called grace.

Sincerely,

A Christian

 

 

 

 

 

 

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes

Romans 1:16

Last night I finally got the opportunity to watch this “I am Second” video.

I love how this video begins… a reminder that we all are going to die. This is the bottom line of us all. So I ask you… what are your struggling against and struggling for? What is your focus in this world? What is your goal to achieve… and why is it your goal?

As I watched… I loved also the blessing of seeing the  heart of Mrs Kay. In the show they make her appear a little “cookey” as we might say here in the South… but make no bones about it… she is one of the strongest women you will probably ever meet. In a day where the thought of standing by your man appears to be an ancient concept. In a day where the thought of a marriage not being worth it, if it is hard… we see a different story in her.

Where in the Word does it say if it is hard it is not worth it? Where is it written that a relationship that requires the actual use of the fruits of the Spirit is not working? Where is it written that it will take anything less than humble submission to the Word of God and submission to the will of the Spirit of God to walk in love and live out love (that is God’s definition of love, not the world’s) in our families?

Where is that written?

What relationships are you walking out on because you can’t take it?

What relationships are you not handling the way God commands us to in His Word because you can’t take doing it God’s way?

Have you even tried doing it God’s way? Not the way a pastor advised you, or a Sunday School teacher, or a person at work, but the way the Word of God said… you just might find He was right all along.

 

Have you missed the gospel?

Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

1 Corinthians 15:1-5

 

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.