What I WAS and What I AM

It is with a good bit of trepidation covered in boldness that I make the following confession: from my early years to my adult years, I have done things that warranted the following labels: thief, envious, unrealistic, fake, jealous, gossip, covetous, mean, liar, lazy, loose, coward, procrastinator, messy, disillusioned, “that girl”, unimportant, arrogant, slanderer, selfish, living in lala land, bad, easy, nobody…etc.  The truth is, I continue to battle some of these same things today…I am not perfect and neither do I proclaim to be.

I don’t have all the answers to “How to live the perfect Christian life”, but I do know this, over the past 10 years or so, God as gotten a hold of my life and has begun to peel back layer upon layer of the negative labels.  The process has been one of the most painful experiences of my life.  For example, in order for me to not be known as arrogant, I had to be humble…and boy did He humble me.  I had to be brought low to truly understand the depravity of my own soul and appreciate how much I am NOT better than anyone else.  I have learned that if I constantly maintain a posture of bowed head and bent knees before the Lord, it’s hard for me to stand with a puffed up chest.

Back to the layers…One of the greatest things that I love about the Lord is His attentive care that He places on me as He peels away the layers of negative labels.  I liken this process to that of a nurse caring for a burn victims wounds.  I came before the Lord with disease festering wounds with scabs forming over them.  The Lord would carefully remove the scabs, clean out the disease, and place a fresh bandage on top; that way new healthy skin could grow. He removed the label of nobody, placed people in my life and gave me scripture that helped me process what my identity was, then covered me with the labels FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE…CHILD OF THE KING. Layer by layer.  Wound by wound.  God made sure that I no longer owned those labels.  He’s given me new ones and I am secure in that.

I’m NOT what I WAS for I KNOW what I AM!

Junk

Earlier this summer, as my husband got out of his car and started walking up to the house, my neighbor “politely” asked him what we were gonna do about our grass.  For some reason, my community is OBSESSED with the appearance of their yards…constantly mowing AT ALL HOURS OF THE MORNING OR NIGHT! I’m kinda of impressed with the care that my neighbors have for their yards.  We care about our yard as well.  That’s why it struck me as odd when she asked what we were gonna do about it.  Our yard was not bad at all! Sure, it wouldn’t have won “Yard of the Month”, but it didn’t look like we had been out of town for a month either.  Anywho, my husband told her we’d take care of it and proceeded to come in the house.

This morning, as I was opening the blinds, I was reminded of that “rebuke” she gave months ago.  As I looked out our kitchen window, I could see her backyard…and just kinda took in what I saw: a car, two dogs, doghouses, clothes that had been hanging from the tree drying for a few days, all sorts of “projects” that Mr. was working on, trash, etc.  As I looked at the state of their backyard, I was hit with the parallel of her pristine front and junky backyard with how we Christians do the same with our lives.

Don’t know about you, but I am so guilty of this.  I want people to see me as a person who has it all together and is on top of things, all the while concealing what is really going on:  a scared wife/mother who fears she is failing at every aspect of her life.  I don’t want you to know that part of me.  I don’t want to be the “needy” friend. You know, that friend that always get poured into, but never does any pouring.  So I daily have to strive to rest in who God made me to be and what I know to be true: I am a child of the King! Fearfully and wonderfully made.  That apart from Him I can do nothing! In His strength and made strong.  Yes, I will fail, but it’s not the end of the world.  There is a lesson to be learned somewhere in this…

We have been conditioned to always put our best foot forward and that 1st impressions are everything. This is very wise counsel and we should adhere to it.  However, all to often, we take it to the extreme where our best foot or 1st impression is all we’ll allow someone to see.  We believe the devils lies when he tells us “If they really knew you, they wouldn’t like you” or “They can forgive this sin, but not that one” or “You’re the only one that can take care of you…you don’t need anyone else”.  These are all lies.  Everyone is in need of a little grace (or in my case…a LOT of grace).  We all have stuff and no ones stuff is worse than the others.  It took me a while to learn and apply that.  When I would share my testimony, there were sections that I would gloss over because deep down I knew that those “dark” years were the “unforgivable” years and people would judge me today by what I did then.  By God’s grace and mercy, I’m not that same person.  So, now I’m learning to present my authentic self and if I am judged, I am not to take it personally and love those people even more.

So, what about you?  What would happen if you stopped putting your best foot forward and started allowing people to see what you struggle with?  I bet that you’d probably meet other individuals with similar struggles…similar junk…similar mess.  Everyone has stuff.  

I’m just sayen…

I heard this from Steve Harvey the other day and it has stuck with me:

“When men are out there catching hell from the world, they don’t need to come home and catch hell from their wives.”

WOW! Yes indeed! Let me go ahead and recognize that, yes, there are some sorry excuses for men.  And yes, not every man is taking care of their business at home.  I’m not thinking about those men.  I’m thinking about the men that WORK and COME HOME and put on their husband/daddy hats.

If your man is out there grinding, trying his best to make the necessary income to put food on the table, electricity in the home, clothing on your back, all the while catching hell from whomever, why on earth do we beat them down when they get home?  Wives, you know what happens when you constantly beat down, berate, condescend, and undermined a man?  He’ll slowly become the very thing that you are telling him he is.  I’m pretty sure you didn’t marry a “sorry excuse for a man”, so why treat him like one?

Put the shoe on the other foot.  Wife, how would you feel if you struggled all day at work and came home to constant chaos? No peace…just drama.  How many “extra shifts” would you take on? How often would you just come home and go straight to bed?  What encouraging words would you like to hear?  What kind of atmosphere would you like to come home to?

I bet if you quit whining and complaining and nagging and started uplifting, encouraging, and respecting, you’ll start to see small changes and less push-back.  I’m just sayen…

Didn’t We (almost) Have it All?

…or that’s what we were told.  It was more like, “y’all had it all.”  (Background: my husband committed a sin that ultimately caused him to loose his job.  More on that in posts to come).  Sure, my husband worked a job that gave him the ability to use his gifts and talents, and afforded us to live a lifestyle that was a little more cushiony than most.  My husband was paid a salary that freed me to be able to stay home with our two children.  We lived a life that gave the appearance that we had it all.  So, when my husbands sin came to light…things had to change. Pay-cut doesn’t begin to describe the financial strain we were under.  We could no longer afford the home we were renting.  Gone was the freedom to grocery shop “aimlessly”.  Unless it was a NEED, it did not get purchased.  It wasn’t just a monetary loss that occurred, there was also a loss of respect, dignity, friendship, status, comfort, etc.  All we had was apparently lost.  Or was it?

What if, and this may be a crazy thought, but what if the things that we held dear were the very things that God needed to strip us of in order to get us back to a place of TOTAL dependence? I know right? CRAZY! Why on earth would the Lord, being the Sovereign and Holy God that He is, take away EVERYTHING (or what we considered everything)? How would all this “stuff” get in the way of our dependence on Him?

For us, in order to hear God clearly, those things had to be removed.  It was even necessary for my husband and I to not be around each other in order for true healing and restoration to take place.  Now, we live in a small house with a super tight budget.  We can’t do, with freedom and ease, the social things that we used to.  Sucky life, huh?  Not really.  I would say that loosing everything has been the best thing for us and our family.  This small house with limited “alone” space has provided the opportunity to have real quality family time and learn to live with each other, instead of everyone going to their respective corners.  The tight budget/time has taught us to maximize what we have and really appreciate the “moments”.  Loosing everything has strengthened our communication.  Before, we didn’t talk, now there is a JOY in talking.  Our life is so enriched now that we have nothing!

So I challenge you: How tight are you holding onto your “everything”?  Is your status, lifestyle, job, etc that important that you are willing to risk your relationship with the Lord?  Because this I know, God loves you entirely too much to let any thing or any one come between Him and you.

…but you don’t have to take my word for it.

**Why the Mike Vick pic?  They said he had everything…and he lost it all

What are You Holding Onto?

If God is God, then what are you holding onto?  If what you believe God to be (Holy, Gracious, Sovereign, Protector, Righter of Wrongs, Maker of All things New, etc.) is true, then what is in you that feels it necessary to hold onto whatever situstion/circumstance in your life.  Because, whatever it is, You need God to reveal it & help you face it, so that you can authentically bask in the Truth that God is God, & be able to walk in that truth.  By walking in the Truth that God is God, the Truth will trickle down & permeate every area and aspect of my life.  Your situation/circumstance, as hard and difficult as it is, will be able to face.

So, I ask again: If God is God ,what are you holding onto that is not allowing Him to be God?

Grace & Spiritual Warfare

What’s so amazing about grace?  I’ve been pondering this all weekend & how hard it is to give even though it’s been given to me time after time after time.

I’ve recently come under attack from the devil.  He was trying to get me to react to a situation in a way that would have made matters a whole lot worse.  Satan kept reminding me of how I used to be and how “justified” I would have been in my response.  When that didn’t work, he brought up a very legitimate need that I have (and have always had) for being stuck up for.  The thought being, if I can’t speak, then who will speak for me…someone needs to tell this person that it is not ok to speak of people in this manner…this person needs to know this!

While venting to a friend, I had a moment of clarity.  I told Kim that in spite of how right and justified I would be, I felt the Holy Spirit telling me to extend Grace to a person that is unwilling to do the same.  That infuriated me because I wanted to be right…I am right!  What I wanted to do was have a sit down and since this person doesn’t “know” me, then I would “show” me (get my drift?).  I wanted to redefine the nature of our association. I wanted to express all the hurt I felt and how deeply wounded I was.

Then I read Psalm 35.  Praise God!  He met me right where I was.  The scripture was jumping off the pages.  It was as if God Himself sent David to remind me that GOD will fight for me.  GOD will be my voice and speak on my behalf!  I was also reminded that we struggle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms! Instead of letting my ‘old-man’ handle things, I needed to put on the full armor of God and STAND!

How does Grace fit into all of this?  A few months ago I was presented with a unique opportunity to show Grace to someone.  I had every ‘right’ to reject this person and to walk away.  But before I could even begin to think on those things, the Holy Spirit placed a mirror in front of me and whispered “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me”.  Amazing Grace…Amazing Grace…Amazing Grace!  God was finally cashing in on “To whom much is given, much is required”.  And wow, have I been given much.  When I look back at my wretched life, my vision is skewed because of the Grace that Christ poured all over it.  Lying…Grace! Stealing…Grace! Cheating…Grace! Self-Indulgent…Grace!  Self-Righteous…GRACE!  Christ’s Grace has permeated my life so thoroughly that I need to be quick to extend Grace.  It’s hard, but it’s necessary!

Then the Lord gave me this comfort this morning:

There is a fountain filled with blood,
Drawn from Immanuel’s veins,
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.

The dying thief rejoiced to see
That fountain in His day;
And there have I, though vile as he,
Washed all my sins away.

Dear dying Lamb, Thy precious blood
Shall never lose its pow’r,
Till all the ransomed church of God
Are safe, to sin no more.

E’er since by faith I saw the stream
Thy flowing wounds supply,
Redeeming love has been my theme,
And shall be till I die.

When this poor, lisping, stamm’ring tongue
Lies silent in the grave,
Then in a nobler, sweeter song,
I’ll sing Thy pow’r to save.

…Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die!  Washed ALL my sins away, washed ALL my sins away! Redeeming love has been my theme, and shall be till I die!

And He Shall Be Called…

Advocate (1John 2:1)…

Lamb of God (John 1:29)…

The Resurrection & The Life (John11:25)…

Shepherd & Bishop of Souls (1Peter 2:25)…

Judge (Acts 10:42)…

Lord of Lords (1Timothy 6:15)…

Man of Sorrows (Isaiah 53:3)…

Head of the Church (Ephesians 5:23)…

Master (Matthew 8:19)…

Faithful & True Witness (Revelation 3:14)…

Rock (1Corinthians 10:4)…High Priest (Hebrews 6:20)…The Door (John 10:9)…

Living Water (John 4:10)…Bread of Life (John 6:35)…Rose of Sharon (Song of Solomon 2:1)…

Alpha & Omega (Revelation 22:13)…True Vine (John 15:1)…Messiah (Daniel 9:25)…

Teacher (John 3:2)…Holy One (Mark 1:24)…Mediator (1Timothy 2:5)…

The Beloved (Ephesians 1:6)…Branch (Isaiah 11:1)…Carpenter (Mark 6:3)…

Good Shepherd (John 10:11)…Light of the World (John 8:12)…

Image of the Invisible God (Colossians 1:15)…The Word (John 1:1)…

Chief Cornerstone (Ephesians 2:20)…Savior (John 4:42)…Servant (Matthew 12:18)…

Author & Finisher of Our Faith (Hebrews 12:2)…The Almighty (Revelation 1:8)…

Everlasting Father (Isaiah 9:6)…Shiloh (Genesis 49:10)…

Lion of the Tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5)…I Am (John 8:58)…

King of Kings (1Timothy 6:15)…Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6)…

Bridegroom (Matthew 9:15)…Only Begotten Son (John 3:16)…

Wonderful Counselor (Isaiah 9:6)…Immanuel (Matthew 1:23)…

Son of Man (Matthew 20:28)…Dayspring (Luke 1:78)…

The Amen (Revelation 3:14)…King of the Jews (Mark 15:26)…Prophet (Matthew 21:11)…

Redeemer (Job 19:25)…Anchor (Hebrews 6:19)…Bright Morning Star (Revelation 22:16)…

The Way, The Truth, & The Life (John 14:6)

Jesus, Part I

At the Name of Jesus, every knee shall bow & every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Throughout my life, I’ve heard that over and over and over again. Those words make my heart soar! At the very mention of His Name, immediate response is humbling & confession. I was meditating on this and went to Philippians 2:3-11. In those verses I noticed something that I hadn’t really paid attention to…the depth never hit until now.  In verse 10 it includes “of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;”  Websters dictionary defines “every” as: “each and all of the members of a group considered singly and without exception…each and all of a series of entities or intervals as specified.”  At the mention of His Name, every thing in Heaven, Earth, & UNDER the Earth will bow and confess.  Not everything, but every THING will proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord!!!

Verses 3-9 speak on how we should consider ourselves not above anyone else and treat them as such.  The ultimate example of that was Jesus Christ, who even though He is in the form of God, made Himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being obedient until the point of death.  Here’s the part I love: God gave Him the Name above EVERY name…and it’s at the mention of THAT Name, not muhammad, confusious or any other gods name, but the Wonderful, Precious, Holy Name of Jesus that EVERY thing in heaven, earth & under the earth will bow and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord!

I realize that I keep repeating the same thing over and over, but do you get it?  Do you understand that no matter your station in life or how high up the ladder you have gone, at the very utterance of His Matchless Name you will bow and you will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

Haiti

By now, we have all heard of the devastation in Haiti.  My heart races at the sight of so many countries pouring in support.  My heart has also been saddened by those who have said they are too busy to think about Haiti and others that would condemn the Haitians (my quick thought on that: I dare not begin to try to speak on the mind of Christ!  I have learned in my 32 years of life that God will do what He wants, when He wants, how He wants, & to whom He wants…so who am I to speak for Him in such a time as this?).

Overall, this week has been an introspective time for me.  I must confess that I have had a very complaining spirit this week.  I’ve died to my right to have things be a certain way, but why must my children bother me in the 30 seconds I need for using the restroom?  Why must I always wash and fold and put away laundry?  Why must my child be sick and always up under me? Do I have to do dishes?  Do I have to disciple this girl…today?  Why is my husband not home, I’m so tired!  Why?  Why?  Why?

Then the Holy Spirit, ever so gently, reminded me of those suffering.  Here I sit in my house, with my two kids, a husband who loves me and provides for us, two working cars sitting in the driveway, food in the fridge, shoes & clothes in our closets, clean water in water bottles, money in the bank. The Holy Spirit whispered: “there’s a mother who would want nothing more than for her child(ren) to be bothering her right now.  I bet she would love to be doing laundry.  Her arms are probably aching to hold her baby, no matter how old he/she may be.  You know what, Heather, there’s a whole community of people who would rather be doing anything other than what they are doing right now.”

I’ve been a whiny spoiled brat this week & I praise God that He has shown me my ugly sinful self.  I wonder, maybe God didn’t cause this to happen to Haiti…maybe this happened so that we could see how thoroughly spoiled and selfish and self-centered we are.

How Thirsty are You?

Lately, I’ve been wrestling with why Christians are content with being stuck.  During Sunday’s sermon, I began to ponder this even more.  If we have identified certain giftings or spiritual-bends within ourselves, why on Earth are we sitting on them.  I know for sure that God has not called us to a personal salvation…like, if you have the gift of preaching, you just preach to yourself.  What kind of sense does that make?

It’s not for a lack of “want to”, but we will come up with any excuse “not to”.  Kids. Time. Money.  Those seem to be the most popular.  Granted, these all need to be taken into consideration, but not be the scapegoat. I’m a huge believer in the saying, “A person will do what they want to do or what’s important to them.”  Taking it further, nothing will stand in a persons way or they will do what has to be done to make it happen.

Think of it this way: You’re thirsty, I mean, DYING of thirst…lips chapped, mouth parched, can barely speak, thirsty.  You walk in the room and there sits a glorious glass of water AND it’s free…no charge…all you have to do is ask for it or accept it when offered.  But you don’t take it because your kids need you or you don’t have the time.  So now, you just walk around thirsty.  You think of that glass of water from time to time, and you know where it is, but it just sits there…waiting on you.

That’s what I believe some of us are doing with this gift that God has given us.  We know it’s there, but we aren’t taking advantage of it.  We’d rather sit and pray about what God wants us to do with it and wait for His answer.  But while we’re waiting, we get stuck.  Stuck in the everydayness of life.  We are offered ways to get connected and develop and grow deeper, but we’ll come up with every excuse not to.

How would you answer if God stood before you, and asked what you did with His gift?  You’d start stuttering and coming up with excuses.  Maybe, while you are stalling to come up with a good excuse, He’d just press the play button and you’d see all the opportunities that were available. What would you say then?

No more excuses…just pick up the glass of water and let God work out everything else.