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Putting the Lamp Back on the Stand

Jun3

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I’m just going to come right out and tell you this because I realize I need to break a cycle: I’ve been my own censorship nightmare for at least six months now.

It began with an unexpected critique from an unexpected source.  Someone felt I had shared too much.  I had posted something too real.  I was opening myself up to be misunderstood.  I did not agree, but I could not shake the hurt feelings that came from hearing that criticism.  So brick by brick, layer by layer, I began to censor myself in such a way that captured nearly every truth-inspired thought I wanted to write about — every day-to-day blessing, burden, lesson, and miracle — and set it aside.

I would set it aside and say to myself, “Someone will misunderstand me.  Someone will disagree with me.  Someone will find what I share to be too much, or too real, or too [insert descriptor].”

This thought cycle has been crippling for me as a writer, but more so it has been ruining the very purpose of being a lamp on a stand.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16

This morning I was thinking through the extreme censorship of yet another blog post I had written last week and never shared, and it hit me: My lamp is hanging out under a basket.  

Now, don’t get me wrong, I have never written here with the intention of becoming an open book.  I have read many blogs in the last year that certainly do share too much (in my opinion) or share too much, too quickly by showing no sign of biblical discernment before spilling their thoughts for the world.  I think writing for the general public requires a great deal of discernment and accountability, but I also know we aren’t all in agreement on these standards.

I do have some strict standards in place that I believe are God-honoring and reasonable.  For example:

I strive to be as discerning as possible in all things I claim as “biblical,” checking and re-checking Scripture references when necessary and comparing notes with authors and pastors I highly respect.

I make distinctions between what I believe are biblical mandates and what is simply opinion or preference.   

I try to evaluate each post by asking, “Will this teach, encourage, build up, edify, or gently rebuke another believer?”  

I do not share information here which could damage the reputation of another person in my life, especially that of my husband, my family members, and my church.  This means I do not share stories that reveal these people’s past mistakes, sins, or weaknesses unless I have their direct permission to do so.  (I am very strict about this, and will continue to be.)   

I will not share information about my marriage without the approval of my husband to do so.

Finally, I will not be sharing anything on the topic of sexual intimacy.  While I believe there is a time and place for addressing this very important topic and I strongly believe it is a vital part of the marriage relationship, I think the line between appropriate and inappropriate content is too gray for the purpose of this blog.  You simply do not know what words or phrases will tempt another believer to think impure thoughts and the internet is not a good place to trigger those thoughts for another person.   

That being said, I have let myself become so critical of my own writing in recent months that I have managed to stretch these standards to ban nearly every topic I have reason to write about.  I have become fearful of other people’s standards and let them become tape over my mouth, when it has been God’s standards all along that I desire to follow in my writing — a God who wants us to be lamps on stands, speaking hard truth, rebuking and rebuilding, confessing and repenting, inspiring and guiding. 

And I know I need to stop this censorship nightmare in order to make those things a reality again.  I’m telling you all of this for a number of reasons:

I want you to know my heart behind the things I share here is not to share too much or be too real, but my standard of too much and too real might be different from yours.  That does not mean I am careless with what I decide to post, it simply means we might disagree.  Please disagree respectfully.

I want you to know there are times when I may say something that is wrong or easily misunderstood, but I have trusted people in place who will correct me firmly and quickly if it is necessary.  Please feel free to ask clarifying questions in comments or emails, but remember I am a real person just like you.

Finally, I want you to know that it is not okay to remain silent because you are afraid of what another person might think or say.  We must strive to be God-honoring and discerning as we speak and write, but that can not equate to people-pleasing silence or ear-tickling.  Every single one of my favorite authors and bloggers — people who have been used by God to change my life with their words – are attacked daily in online forums and comment threads, but I am so thankful they continue boldly for the glory of God and the betterment of the Kingdom.  While my skin may not be as thick as theirs, I know we are temples of the same courageous Spirit.

I’ve written before on my struggle with shyness and the fear of man, and I realize that this is all just another avenue in which I have fallen to this weakness.  I’ve also written about my desire to be more visible in my everyday Christian life in spite of my fears and reservations, and I know that battling these fears and being real with others about everyday life is a vital part of this lamp business.

Expect things to bounce back to real but regulated around here.  I’m in the process of firing my censorship staff and trusting the Holy Spirit to do the job much more effectively.  If you find yourself in similar shoes, either in blogging or in other parts of life, I invite you to join me in this.

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Adjusting to Motherhood Update

Apr10

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It has been two months since I shared with all of you that I have struggled to adjust to motherhood when it comes to managing my home and everything that goes with it.  Here are some specific ways I wanted to grow in this struggle at that time:

  • Getting up one hour before my son. (And going to bed earlier!)
  • Developing a chore routine & learning to incorporate my little one.
  • Finding a meal planning approach that works well for my family.
  • Learning to be okay with unfinished projects & returning to them as time allows.  (This will be difficult for me, but it is so important.)
  • Better utilizing my husband’s days off without feeling guilty about missing “family time” or asking for his help. 

I am so grateful to sit here today with a report that some of these things have been getting better.  A lot better.  At the time I wrote that post, I was very discouraged and feeling like quite a failure.  I was looking at all of my missed opportunities to improve in these things, and feeling convicted of the laziness that was a part of it all.

I was tearful and, as I shared yesterday, brought face to face with my own pride in how I had approached these things in the past.  Despite the unpleasant feelings that sometimes come in these times of humbling conviction, I am so glad that I found myself in that place.  God used it to renew my mind and inspire change in my life, and today I want to share a little bit of what has been happening around here.

By no means am I cruising on easy street at this point, but I have been able to sustain some helpful changes and new habits that have impacted my entire family.  I will simply take each of the points listed above and share some of the practical things that have been making a difference.

Getting up one hour before my son. (And going to bed earlier!)

I’m getting there on this one, and daylight savings time helped a lot. (I never expected to say those words, like ever.)  Changing the clocks always forces me to adjust my sleep with the rest of the adult world, but thankfully my son doesn’t pay attention to a clock when it comes to his wake-up time.  This has meant that he is waking up around 7:30 each morning, rather than 6:30, and I am finding it much easier to beat him out of bed.

There are still mornings that I sleep in against my better judgement, and there are many nights that we miss our ideal bedtime of 10:00 by a longshot.  My husband sets a crazy good example by getting up before 5am each morning for prayer and Bible study, no matter what time we get to bed the night before.  I, on the other hand, do not wake up so willingly after a late night, which makes the early bedtime so, so important in my routine.

I realize that the new baby in September will completely disrupt any progress I make in these efforts, but my hope is that it will take me less time with this baby to adjust to a routine.  (I can dream, right?)

Developing a chore routine & learning to incorporate my little one.

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I have tried to “figure out” a chore routine that works for us so many times, and usually it changes from week to week.  I still can not claim to have figured out a great routine, as my son’s naps continue to vary in timing and length and we have a schedule in which no two days are ever alike.  BUT, I have been working on some habits that help the weekly chores feel less daunting and more under control.

  1. I timed myself while completing a variety of tasks. Knowing approximately how many minutes it takes me to fold a load of laundry, empty and/or fill the dishwasher, scrub the kitchen floor, vacuum, etc. has helped me manage my time more responsibly.  I found that I had a very wrong estimation of how time-consuming each task actually is, and that caused me to put it off because I felt I would not have time to complete it.  When I realized how quickly I actually complete these things, I found myself getting them done in the windows of time that I had often let slip by without being productive.
  2. I plan more effectively for interruptions.  My response to interruption in the past has been to feel discouraged and throw in the towel on the task I am trying to complete.  This was not working at all with a little boy who still needs his mommy’s help to reach things, climb things, and open things in addition to the unexpected messes he makes, diapers he fills, chemicals he tries to drink, and rules he tries to break.  I have been trying to be more intentional in handling interruptions quickly and patiently, meeting whatever need arises, and then involving the little ones (there are days I babysit another toddler) as much as possible as I finish it.  It has been a trial and error process, but being more intentional in how I handle interruptions has helped both me and my son feel less grumpy about chores!
  3. I ask myself what’s next and I do it.  Marci at Thankful Homemaker shared this advice for mothers of young children, and it has helped me immensely: “Do the next thing.”  It’s so basic, but it’s exactly what I need when my mind is spinning in a million different directions while caring for little children.

Finding a meal planning approach that works well for my family.

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I’ve been practicing my homemade pizza dough skills.

I’m really excited about this one.  Meal planning has been something that I’ve REALLY struggled with throughout our marriage.  In our first year of marriage I was cooking most of our meals at home, but I was spending upwards of $250 on groceries some weeks.  (Seriously!)  Because we were both working full-time, we were able to manage that cost into our budget.  I was planning meals, but I wasn’t doing it the smart way and the result was unused food going to waste each week and many lost dollars.

Transitioning from two incomes to one required me to think smarter about the money I was spending on food, but again I didn’t approach it the smart way and I hadn’t gotten any better at cooking inexpensive, healthy meals.  I struggled to make one grocery trip worth of food stretch through to the next one, and we were often having to dip into other parts of our budget to add to our food budget.  We were also eating out more than we could afford, and that was affecting our ability to save money and pay off debt as needed.

Since February, I’ve started using Plan to Eat and it has changed everything.  This online meal planning software has been exactly what I needed to help me approach meal planning the smart way.  I am spending less, seeing less food go to waste, and cooking a greater variety of healthy foods.  In the month of March, using this software, I did several things I had never done before: stayed under budget in our food category, stayed (well) under budget in our eating-out category, tried a new recipe every week, and cooked with yeast. 

I am a visual processor, and this software has helped me visualize my meal options, schedule, and grocery list all in one place.  It fits my style, and it fits my family’s needs.  I feel more equipped to plan meals effectively, and the benefits of that have trickled into our budget & our health as well as reduced the stress we have felt in the past at the “what’s for dinner” question.  After using Plan to Eat for a thirty-day trial, we felt that it was well worth $37 for 12 months, as it saved us far more than that in one month alone.

Here is one of the most important things I changed in addition to using this software:  I stopped planning the core days of my ”cooking week” on Monday through Friday and instead planned Friday through Monday as major cooking days.  As a family in ministry, our schedule during the week includes several rushed dinner hours.  By taking that into account, it made much more sense for me to cook large meals throughout the weekend while my husband was able to help with things, use the crock pot on Mondays, and use Tuesday through Thursday for left-overs or sandwiches.

By changing how I approach the meal schedule, we have been far less tempted to eat out & my husband has also had the convenience of more leftovers for his lunch throughout the week.

Learning to be okay with unfinished projects & returning to them as time allows.

This one continues to be a work in progress, as they all are.  The things I have already mentioned above in the chore routine section have helped me with some of this, especially figuring out ways to incorporate my son into some of these tasks when possible.

Much of this is a spiritual battle for me, as I see a great deal of my own pride welling up in the moments when my plans are interrupted and I am left with no choice but to set them aside.  I have been trying to notice these moments of anger and frustration as they happen and pray for patience and humility.

It is amazing how much better our days go, for all of us, when I respond gently to the more difficult moments. 

Better utilizing my husband’s days off without feeling guilty about missing “family time” or asking for his help.

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The more my husband and I talked about this one, the more I realized these “guilty” feelings had very little to do with him and a lot to do with my own insecurities.  The truth is, my husband LOVES cleaning, and I am well aware of this.

He grew up in a spotless home and cleaning actually relaxes him.  Of course, the opposite is also true – excess mess makes it difficult for him to relax.  While we both agree that our goal is not spotless, we do appreciate keeping things as neat as we can in our living space.

That being said, I had let the pressure of knowing he likes a clean home stress me out, but I had not talked through it with him enough to better understand his expectations and utilize his love for cleaning.  It turns out, he had no idea I was feeling so stressed out about this stuff, and he was pretty sad to know I was feeling this way.

So here are some things I’ve been trying to do to involve him without feeling guilty:

  1. I declare the occasional “deep clean day” on one of his days off.  This probably doesn’t work in every marriage, but when you have a husband who loves to clean this can be as exciting as a wife saying, “why don’t you go play football with your friends all afternoon.”  I’ve set aside the guilty feelings and started to view these days of tag-team parenting and to-do lists as a special version of quality family time.  The benefits carry over for a couple of weeks into my daily routines, and when they run out I just declare another one.
  2. I let my desire for “fun” family time motivate me to be more diligent in finishing chores first.  While before, I would procrastinate the chores as I enjoyed our time together over morning coffee and slow mornings, our days are so much more “fun” when I just get things DONE and then relax with my family.  Again, this might seem like common sense to some of you, but it has required me to think intentionally and take action when I feel like doing nothing.
  3. I’m learning to take joy in listening to my husband and son play together without being involved.  I used to feel like I was missing out in these moments, but I’ve realized there is something so sweet about observing from a distance.  Cooking has become much more fun for me as I chop vegetables and stir pots while soaking up the sounds of my son and husband giggling, jumping, reading, etc.

Wrap Up

I realize none of the things I’m doing are new or revolutionary in the world of home and family, but it has been a work of grace in my life that I am able to look back on the last two months and see evidence of progress.  As basic as these things may be, I spent far too long feeling frustrated with my failures, and yet I never took serious steps to move beyond them and grow in my skills.

I have finally started to experience joy and freedom in my homemaking efforts, and I know that this would not be true if I had continued to lean on my own strength and pride as I had for most of my son’s life.  God is so good, and I am looking forward to continuing in this journey as I lean heavily on His grace and power.

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The One Where I Talk About the Weather & Seasonal Depression

Mar26

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I woke up yesterday to a beautiful winter scene surrounding our home.  Here in Cleveland the natives love to joke about the unpredictable snow fall in early spring, as if it is part of their trademark.  “That’s Cleveland for you,” they say with a knowing smile.  Having lived in northern states my entire life, including a much snowier and colder Minnesota, I find nothing special about Winter weather lingering while the trees are budding and early flowers bloom.  Most of my childhood Easter dresses were covered with coats and paired with snow boots, or so the pictures tell me.

I get it.  Some years, it’s just not Spring until we’re half-way through June, regardless of what the groundhog or calendar has to say about it.

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Still, I always hope for a fluke year of flip-flops in March.  (Or even February… I swear it happened once.)  For weeks now I have been checking the extended forecast every morning in hopes that the newly visible day would finally promise warmer weather.  I don’t just anxiously wait for it; I pray for it.

You see, no matter how beautiful the snow may be as it sits on the crimson tree buds, it wears on me.  For as long as I can remember, I have struggled to get out of bed in the morning in the late months of winter.  Though sleep is plenty, the coffee is hot, and my home is warm and welcoming — my eyes feel as dim as the gray sky and my chest feels tight and breathless.  If I’m not intentional in fighting it, I find myself dreading each day before it begins and choosing laziness in spite of the mile long to-do list.

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This year, perhaps due to pregnancy hormones or possibly the new stresses of parenting a toddler, this weather has felt even more suffocating.  I have had unexplained moments of fighting back tears and some moments of full-blown sobbing that I struggle to explain.  My love for reason leads me to search for explanations, and while digging for answers I dive into a pool of wallowing over the possibilities.  Moments after pulling myself together, I laugh at the scene that just unfolded and genuinely ask myself, “What WAS that?!”

This morning that scene involved a hot pan full of eggs, a nice text message from a friend, and the sound of Curious George streaming from the living room.  Nothing went wrong.  Everything was as it always is — routine.  Yet somehow by the time my son came running up to check on the status of his breakfast I was blotting my face with paper towels and trying to clear my eyes enough to see the pan as I stirred.

I smiled at him through my red, tearful eyes, “Are you ready for eggs, baby?”

“READY!” He yelled as I lifted him to his seat.  I sat with him as he ate and continued to cry as I tried to piece together what on earth my problem could be.  Though I wanted to pray, I knew I needed to pray, prayer was hard in this moment.  Perhaps I had too much pride in my own strength to bow to something greater — I just needed to figure it out.

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And then I remembered truth.  I sat there with my face in my hands at the kitchen table wondering what I needed to do to pull myself together, and I was reminded that the last thing I needed to do is try to pull myself together.  I was confronted with the foolishness of leaning on my own strength to overcome my circumstances, when God reminded me just last night that His grace is sufficient for me and that His power is made perfect in weakness.   

In 2 Corinthians 12, Paul is talking about the thorn in his flesh, something that likely caused him great pain and anguish.  He shares that he pleaded for God to take it away from him, but goes on to explain:  “But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (v. 9)

It is true that what I experience each year at this time is sometimes called seasonal depression or seasonal-affective disorder, and when Winter drags on it can become an undeniable weakness of mine.  In the past, my experience as a mental health counselor and natural remedy enthusiast has been my driving force in facing this weakness.  There are vitamin supplements, diet changes, UV lamps, energy-giving foods, and daily disciplines that seem to make a difference.  Simply getting outside under natural light and breathing fresh air can sometimes help immensely.

These things might help a little, but I have been wrong in leaning on them.  I have been wrong to trust so heavily in my own ability to reason through these winter moments, and my pride in pretending before myself and others that it is not a real weakness.  I have been wrong in my pride to pretend it is not a weakness that God can rest his power upon.       

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So today I know God is working to humble me in this.  As I am seeking to believe that His grace and power are all that He promises and trusting that it is in His grace that I will find true strength, I am here boasting in my weakness.  I am boasting in this weakness, not to seek your comfort or encouragement, not to draw sympathy or helpful suggestions, but rather because there is not room for me to continue claiming to have strength in my own weaknesses or pretending that weakness does not exist. (Believe me there are far more where this came from!)

It is not easy for me to share this with people, let alone publish something on my blog, but I know there is a lot of pride wrapped up in the desire to keep it between my husband and I.  I am sick of this pride in my life, and I want to be done with it.  God wants me to be done with it.  So, I am here to tell you that I am a weak vessel and this weather is weakening me further.  Vitamin supplements are perfectly fine and eating healthy is always a priority, but it will be the power of God and His grace that give me strength as I pray for better days and rejoice in this time of greater weakness.

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Is It Wrong to Feel Shy?

Jan16

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My Life as a Shy Girl

I spent the first twenty years of my life being described as “shy” by myself and others.  As a very young child, my mother recalls I became as timid as a mouse at the first sight of an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people, and in the instance that one of those people would try to speak to me I would hide my face so firmly in my mother’s pant leg or skirt that I saw nothing but darkness.

For as long as I can remember, these situations would cause my face to flush with heat and redness and my stomach to turn to the point of making me nauseous.  When it came time for me to start school, the shyness was so overwhelming that I could do nothing but sob for the first five days.  I can still remember the relief I felt as the school principal agreed to walk me home after dozens of failed attempts to calm me down.

It did not take long for my school and the people there to become familiar and comfortable, and the shyness that had overwhelmed me in those early days no longer stopped me from laughing and playing throughout my elementary years.  To the relief of my mother, I grew comfortable with being the same loud and energetic child I had been at home while I was at school.

The shyness in unfamiliar situations remained, however.  I needed to “warm up” to a group of people before I could bring myself to speak.  I needed to observe my surroundings, sometimes for weeks, before I felt relaxed in them.  If I did not feel confident that I would be seen as I wanted to be seen, understood as I wanted to be understood, accepted as I wanted to be accepted, I hid by remaining silent and inactive.

While this shyness I felt was strongest in the midst of new settings and new people, I used it as an excuse into my teen years to explain my failure to fully engage in special opportunities.  As a basketball player, I let shyness toward the crowd keep me from taking easy shots at a wide open hoop.  As a singer, it led me to turn down opportunities to sing in front of an audience.  As an honor student, I let it hold me back from pursuing opportunities that would benefit my college scholarship applications.

“There is nothing wrong with being shy,” I was always told.  As those close to me encouraged me to step out of my comfort zone and share my talents in various ways, I began to feel reassured by their words of praise and affirmation.  Eventually, when it came to things like singing and various extracurricular activities, the positive words of others became my foundation for overcoming shyness.  My confidence grew in areas of public performance as I learned I could be successful at being seen as I wanted to be seen. 

God’s Intervention

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. – Galatians 1:10

Then God stepped in and took hold of my life, and my view of myself and the world around me began to change.  Through faith in Jesus Christ, I became a new person with the challenge to put off my old self.  This “shyness” I had grown to embrace as part of my previous identity was quickly feeling out-of-place within my new identity. 

As I studied God’s Word, I was continually confronted with challenges to boldly proclaim Jesus Christ without fear (Acts 28:31).  I faced verses like Proverbs 29:25 which gave a new name to my shyness – a fear of man – and warned of it being a snare.  I learned that as a servant of Christ, I could not serve two masters by seeking to please both God and people.

I read over and over again that God has commanded his people to not fear.  I started to trust in the comfort and safety of my Lord and I began to believe that I could do all things through Christ who strengthens me.  As those truths began to resonate in my heart and my love and understanding of God grew, shyness became less overwhelming in my life.

Recognizing a Need for Repentance

It was less overwhelming, but it remained a present temptation and struggle in daily life.  I had spent my entire life using “shyness” as an excuse for a number of sins within my heart:

  1. Fear of man
  2. Fear of failure
  3. A need to please people more than God
  4. Pride
  5. Self-righteousness
  6. False humility
  7. Shame
  8. Idolatry of other’s opinions
  9. Lack of faith
  10. Ignorance toward God

As I have grown in my faith, God has been clearly showing me that the message I had believed throughout my life — that there is nothing wrong with being shy — was a treasured lie.  It was a lie that I had gladly believed in my sinful state that allowed me to walk blindly into snare after snare without knowing who to blame.  It was a lie that fit so well with the other lies of this world that I easily accepted it as a normal part of my identity.

But God is merciful, and He leads his children to truth that sets us free.  In the name of shyness, I was enslaved to the sins listed above, and within their bondage I struggled to fully experience the joy of my salvation.  By exposing this shyness as a stronghold of sin in my life, God led me to repentance and inspired me to pursue the boldness and strength given to us through Christ.

Freed from Bondage but Guarding Against Temptation

Though I fully believe that through Christ I am living in freedom from the bondage of sin, just like the Apostle Paul, I continue to do what I do not want to do.  I still enter into new situations where I am surrounded by unfamiliar people and feel a need to retreat and hide.  I still have times that I am struggling to breathe deeply enough when singing in front of others because my fears take over.  I still let the opinions of other people scare me from being bold and courageous.

The temptation to let shyness and the sins it harbors overtake my life again is one that rarely seems to back down in my life.  It is a weakness that God has used to strengthen my faith by repeatedly replacing lies with truth and proving His strength in times when I know I have none of my own.  Over time, I have learned to see the blessings in this weakness as it has led me to lean more fully on the Lord and seal His words in my memory for moments of battle.

There are several things that have been crucial for me as I have fought to stand purely in this fight against shyness that I believe are useful in guarding against all forms of temptation.  First, it has been absolutely necessary that I identify my shy feelings as wrong and acknowledge that they are not glorifying to God.  Second, knowing Scripture by memory and repeating it to myself in vulnerable moments has helped to replace my fear with truth.  Third, choosing to act obediently in moments when fear is holding me back has led to an early end for an opportunity to continue with sinful thoughts.

Finally, in regards to this specific sin area, I was built up and strengthened by reading the book When People are Big and God is Small by Edward T. Welch several years ago.  This particular book helped me to better identify the heart behind my shyness and the power of God in overcoming it.  If you are someone who is experiencing an overwhelming fear of man, I highly recommend you read this book.

The world may tell me that shyness is just part of who I am, but as a new creation in Christ I have learned that there are many things the world tells me that I should never accept.  I will not claim that it is easy to set aside shyness, but I can testify that it is worth every bit of struggle in order to do so.  There is joy and comfort in God’s ways that replaces fear of man with a feeling of safety and security that this world can not offer.

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Check out the side panel for all the great blogs I link up with from week to week!

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Surpassing Power

Dec11

Do Not Copy! This is Private Property!

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. 8 We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.” (Second Corinthians 4: 7-12)

According to my ESV Study Bible, “jars of clay” was a common metaphor in the ancient world for human weakness.  I don’t know about all of you, but I have spent much of my Christian life embracing this idea that I am clay in the hands of the Great Potter, but it has been the “moldability” of the clay that I’ve desired to embody.  Until recently, as God has been hitting me over the head with Scripture on weakness and humility, I had given absolutely zero thought to the jars of clay being symbolic of weakness.

Sure, I understood the basic physics of clay, that it IS moldable BECAUSE of weakness, but my flesh gravitated toward the properties within clay that give it the strength to conform to the hands of the potter.  In my immature understanding, I focused so heavily on the abilities of the clay that I completely missed the point of this passage.  In my immature understanding, I focused so heavily on the beginning of verse seven, treasure in jars of clay, that I completely failed to see the crux of the sentence, “to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us.”

To weave you further into the mess of my human understanding, verse eight and nine have been in my memory for at least six years now, and yet my focus in memorizing these verses was again misplaced.

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed,” it says. 

This has always rang in my mind as a power verse; Scripture that motivates me to stand strong even when times are tough.  I repeat these words, and I am reminded that no matter the trial, I will be able to endure.  While this is true, I was previously mistaken as I treasured my own ability to not be crushed, driven to despair, forsaken, or destroyed.  Sure, I would fully expect God to help, but I was still believing in something strong within myself.  It is true that no matter the trial I will be able to stand firm, but that ability is nothing of my own strength and everything of the surpassing power that belongs to God.

And then we read of the reason that the jars of clay are in fact treasure, the reason that human weakness is in fact treasure, and the reason we are afflicted in every way:

“…always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 11 For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. 12 So death is at work in us, but life in you.”

At some point in the last five years, God brought my husband and I to a place in our faith journey where we are constantly asking the question, “How can our life be more Christ-centered, and what does it take to make the Gospel the center point in everything we do?”  I find myself wondering what I need to do to make Jesus the MAIN THING even in the smallest of tasks.  I fold laundry and ask the Lord to show me how to magnify the Gospel in such a mundane moment.  I walk away from a small-talk conversation and ask the Lord how that opportunity could have been more Christ-centered.  The goal, I know in my mind, is to live as the verse says, ”always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”  Though my mind seems to understand, it is my heart that has resisted.

While at times this mission to live more Christ-centered lives has seemed overwhelming and even uncomfortable, the real source of my heart’s resistance is not a lack of enthusiasm for the mission or discouragement along the way.  If you know my husband and I, you have probably encountered our enthusiasm for Jesus Christ and the POWER and MIGHT of the God we serve.  No, my resistance is not birthed out of a lack of belief in God’s truth.  I fully believe that He is the God whom He claims to be.

Instead, the resistance is birthed out of a poor understanding of who He has claimed to be, and an incomplete view of who I am made to be.  The consequence of studying even one part of God’s Word carelessly is a life that distorts truth.  The root of my failure to live a life that magnifies the Gospel in every moment has unquestionably been my assumption that the clay represented something capable of contributing to its final shape.  While my mind has been claiming to fully believe that mankind is completely depraved, able to do nothing good without the power of the Cross, my heart has been gripping this flawed belief that I still have some property within me that makes me worthy to be molded.            

The answer to my daily questions regarding the centrality of the Gospel, I now believe, are answered most fully by correcting my understanding and focus in the above verses.  My weakness is a treasure, because it magnifies His power.  Surpassing power belongs to God, not to me.  I will stand firm amidst adversity because of his capabilities, not my own.  Being given over to death will make way for a greater manifestation of Christ within me.

Within this understanding, there is simply no room for pride, self-glorification, entitlement, or even the slightest confidence in my own ability to do anything good by my own strength.  Pure humility, that is the answer.  In every moment, I must embrace that my only boast is Jesus Christ, and I must fully die to myself in order to fully embody His power alone.  I’ve prayed for years that God would make less of me and more of Him in every situation, but I am now recognizing my need to change the tone of that plea.  A heart convicted by the Holy Spirit must repent, and for me there is continually a need to repent of making too much of myself.  God does not need to make less of me, rather I need a realistic view of myself: I am nothing without the power of Christ.  Nothing.  

As I typed those words, I felt as though the blood throughout my body began to flow faster and my skin suddenly cooled.  I am overcome by biblical truth so powerful that my physical body can not help but react.  It is that feeling, that spiritually and physically overcome feeling, that reminds me of the joy that is set before me in this Christ-centered mission.  A reward completely undeserved that my current human state experiences most fully when I am convinced that I am in fact NOTHING without Christ. 

So here I sit, treasuring a different kind of clay, one completely empty of redeeming properties and incapable of contributing to the final shape.  Empty and incapable, yet overflowing and able.  That is the surpassing power of God, made visible through the death and resurrected life of Jesus Christ.

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Gratitude in the Land of Plenty (Part II)

Nov21
*Disclaimer: Part II of this post became something very different from what I set out to write, but I believe it was what God has led me to communicate in this space today.  If nothing else, it has helped me sort out my thoughts and settle in God’s truth.  I pray that even in my failure to be clear, you will be blessed by this message. 

A Lesson from My Flawed Self on Gratitude

I give thanks to God regularly throughout my daily life.  Some of my favorite verses in all of Scripture include those that point to gratitude as a priority in the life of a Christian.  I know that, as believers, there is no such thing as giving too much thanks.

Having experienced (by some small degree) hardship in my life, it is not difficult for me to see that I have blessings overflowing.

Thank you Lord, for friends and family.

Thank you, Lord, for another day.

Thank you, Lord, for health and wellness.

Thank you, Lord, for this food.

Thank you, Lord, for your abundant provision.

Beyond the obvious fact that blessings are not hard to come by in my life, I am also thoughtfully aware that the depths of pain and poverty throughout this broken world have never knocked at my door.  I can not claim to know real suffering or persecution, and I do not buy into this idea that it is simply relative to each person.  (Relativity is a feel-good excuse.)  Minor hardship & pain? Sure.  Suffering? Not yet, anyway.  One can not help but feel gratitude when confronted with the face of true suffering that is experienced by others across the globe.

So as I approach this special day in America where we all gather around our tables for the biggest, most expensive meal we’ve prepared this year and consider what it is that we are thankful for, I have been considering the path my thoughts take in accomplishing this “task” of giving thanks.  Not just on Thanksgiving Day, but every day.  My observations entail that I generally land on gratitude through one of the following thought processes:

  1. I consider all that I am glad to have, and I thank God for it.  (Including the deeper stuff like Jesus, grace, mercy, faith, and God’s love, of course.)
  2. I consider all that I am glad I do not have, and I thank God for it.  (You know: suffering, illness, real enemies, etc.)
  3. I am overcome with affection for someone or some thing and I can not help but express thanks to God for it.  (Including, but not limited to, my salvation in Christ.)
  4. I catch a glimpse of what life looks like without one of my many blessings, and I respond by giving thanks to God that I still have it.  (When a friend loses a loved one, for example, or I see the effects of natural disaster on the news.)
  5. I am struggling with something, possibly feeling down about a particular circumstance or an unmet desire, and I consciously choose to engage in #1 to be obedient in the command to rejoice in the Lord always.

I can imagine that these thought processes are quite familiar to many of you.  I previously might have boasted in my frequent journeys across one through five above.  That is, until recently when I discovered I had taken these steps into a place I had once vowed never to be again.

The Last Time God Hit Me in the Face with Gratitude

It has been eight years now since I entered into a year-long depression after losing my older sister to a drug overdose.  Though I was a Christian, I spent that year refusing to speak to God and too blinded by grief to recognize anything good coming from God.  It was my first year of college, and I had never felt more alone and confused in my walk with the Lord.

Though I was committed to darkness, slowly but surely, He was restoring my faith.  A call from an adult mentor the following January started the process by asking me the question, “What is God teaching you through this loss?” I was slightly offended by the boldness of this question.  What is God teaching me?!  Really?  I said something that sounded wise and Christian-ish at the time, but I was eager to hang up and return to my grief.

In the months that followed, despite the fact that I refused to open my Bible, God was putting Scripture in front of me everywhere I turned that was telling me to rejoice, be glad, give thanks, and think of all that is good and pure.  At first these reminders did nothing but annoy me, until finally my refusal to pray exploded in cries of ingratitude and questioning of the Lord.  “How do you expect me to give thanks?! Where exactly are these GOOD things you expect me to dwell on?! How could you, a loving God, cause me such pain?!”

No sooner than these words left my mouth did I experience an overwhelming wave of conviction, repentance, and abundant grace within my heart.  For days my mind was spinning with the truth that I had swallowed the hour I first believed and was saved, that I deserved hell & that anything short of it came only by the grace of God.  I deserved to be in slavery to sin, and any ounce of freedom came only by the grace of God.  I deserved to have nothing, and any amount of something was a gift of grace.  Evidence of God’s grace surrounded my every moment, and left me with no choice but to be grateful.

In those fragile weeks of my faith journey, God refined in me what gratitude to the Father in all circumstances was all about.  It was about God and grace, an irresistible urge to worship Him, and a recognition that all good and perfect gifts come from above.  Prior to the loss of my sister, giving thanks to God was still heavily motivated by my affection for all that I had, including possessions and the blessings of family, and that affection for these blessings would inspire affection towards God in the form of giving thanks.  There were traces of pride and idolatry in this gratitude, as well as a sense of entitlement as I treasured the many “good” things my good and loving God had given to me.

Without realizing it, the world’s influence on my gratitude had led me to a convenient habit of giving thanks that had more to do with all that I had been given, and little to do with the One who had given it to me and the depth of grace given to me through Jesus Christ.  It was as though my hardened heart had been reawakened to the Gospel in a deeper way than ever before, and the response was pure worship and a thankful heart.  As I prayed to God in tears during that time in my life, I prayed I would never again let my thankfulness be wrapped up in the blessings themselves.

Questions of Worship and Affection

I now realize that this prayer for God-centered thankfulness should have continued daily through today and beyond, for in the time since my grief I have unknowingly returned to a form of gratitude that is more inspired by my affection for my blessings than my affection for God.  (It is no small “coincidence” that my understanding of gratitude was far more God-centered in a time I was stripped of joy in worldly things).

You see, I absolutely believe it is possible for well-intentioned gratitude to our God to be nothing more than a feel-good exercise that identifies the idols in our lives and celebrates things like pride, greed, and entitlement.  My fear that I am trying to express in these posts is that this form of well-intentioned gratitude may be more present in our daily lives than we have acknowledged, and following the five simple steps toward gratitude listed above might be a welcoming gateway to this end.

Now I have to be honest with you and say that I am still heavily tangled in my thoughts on this topic and struggling to articulate the uneasiness in my mind as of late.  I’m realizing that this struggle in my spirit has much less to do with what it really means to give thanks, because the basic definition of “gratitude” is clear enough for me to swallow:  the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.  Take that definition and point it towards God at all times and I think we have a winner for the answer to our basic question.

The struggle in my understanding, I am realizing, is the part where I distinguish whether my appreciation for God’s kindness and desire to return kindness (through acts of worship), is truly pointed in the right direction and divinely inspired.  My questions that I am now asking have much more to do with the motivation & inspiration of our thankfulness, the direction our thankfulness sends our worship and affection, and the possibility that we as Christians are still so thankful for STUFF that we are distracted from the glory of God and the intended object of our worship and affection.

So God has been prodding me to evaluate my gratitude, and it’s led me to ponder these questions: 

  • When I give thanks to God for my blessings, what is the object of my affection? Is it Christ, or the blessing itself?
  • When I give thanks to God for a particular blessing, does it stir in me affection for the God who provided it and inspire a heart of Gospel-centered worship?  Or does it stir in me greater affection for the blessing and inspire deeper worship of an idol?
  • If my gratitude is truly birthed out of my appreciation and affection towards the God of my salvation, is there any room for affection toward the good things of this world?
  • If my gratitude is truly birthed out of my appreciation and affection towards the God of my salvation, where is the evidence that I desire to return it all to Him in humble gratitude?
  • Is it possible that by naming the things in this world I am thankful for with misplaced affection, I am cooperatively following distraction after distraction from the Gospel and evidence of God’s grace in my daily living?
  • If I desire to be thankful in the same way the Apostle Paul demonstrated thankfulness, or even Job, in the midst of every trial and long-suffering, is it possible that the way there is actually far LESS gratitude (and affection) for the things of this world, and instead a clearer picture of the greatness of God in contrast to the total depravity of humanity (which will inspire an irresistible need to give thanks)?

In many cases, the answers to these questions lead me to conclude that more often than not, my gratitude is pointing in the wrong direction.

A Point…At Last

I’ve said a lot here, none of which seems to stick to the plan for what I intended to write, and much of it that may be extraneous in the points I have tried to communicate.  I find myself praying God will give you more clarity than he has given me as you attempt to read through all of this.  If I have lost you in my trail of thought, please feel free to ask questions, though as I said above I am still lacking complete clarity here.  If nothing else, I hope it has challenged you to think deeper.

The point that I have landed on in all of this thinking, praying, and Bible reading in recent days is nothing new or profound to people of faith.  I’m simply putting my own words to a message you’ve heard time and time again:

Everything righteous before God is inspired, sustained, and will be delivered through the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Any human effort to do good must be centered on Christ, fueled by Christ, and surrendered to Christ, including the act of giving thanks.  Anything short of that is missing the mark, and it is therefore sinful.   

My concern is that we (I) have somehow separated the command to give thanks to God in all things and all circumstances from the vital presence and focus of the Gospel in that gratitude.  In some ways we have allowed our obedience to this command to go unrestrained by the truth of the Gospel and our need for it even in the midst of our obedient acts.  John Piper once mentioned at a Together for the Gospel conference that as sinful people, we even need to repent for our imperfect repentance (paraphrased).  His message was clear, that even when we try our best to do what is good, we are still falling short and need more grace.  I have been falling drastically short in my gratitude.     

As we continue to lift up words of thankfulness and praise to the Lord this holiday weekend and every other day of the year, my desire is not only that we be truly thankful in our hearts, but that our gratitude is based on the Gospel and the evidence of God’s grace in every moment.  I also hope to be discerning with my gratitude, and careful to not let it lead me toward worship of anything other than God himself.

Dare I suggest that the single most important thing we as Christians need to do every single day to cultivate a truly thankful heart is not specifically thank God for all of our individual blessings, but rather to grow deeper in our knowledge of and affection for the Gospel and of the God of our salvation.  The natural outpouring of a heart focused on the majesty of God himself will be gratitude, gratitude undistracted by the abundance of fleeting blessings in our lives, gratitude that inspires deeper affection for our Heavenly Father and blurs our affection for the things of this world.

If we are fully saturated by thoughts inspired by the Gospel, is there really a need to seek out reasons to be thankful?

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Gratitude in the Land of Plenty (Part I)

Nov20

A Piercing Memory

I made my mother feel horribly guilty one Christmas for not being able to afford as many gifts as my friends’ parents could.  Despite the fact that she had spent every holiday season for the 12 years of my existence working her hands raw in order to purchase gifts for her children, I accused her of not trying hard enough.

I wanted more.  I deserved more, I thought. 

I looked down on the carefully selected gifts given to me in love, and I shoved them to the side in tears over my unmet wants.  Greed and a complete lack of gratitude burst from my heart that Christmas, and to this day I am ashamed of it.

I’d like to think I would have known better than to have such a burst of materialistic emotion, but the benefits of lower class living had yet to sink into my worldview and a sense of entitlement reigned in a mind unchanged by faith in Christ.

How could I have been so ungrateful?

Now, looking back, there are few life experiences I cherish more than growing up poor.  My mother mastered simple & natural living long before it was trendy, and she did so as a single mother of three children with no outside family to help.  We lived in poverty, according to our culture’s definition, but our needs were always met.

Resourceful can only begin to describe my mother’s skills and methods in providing for us.  I suspect I am one of few twenty-somethings in America who recalls my clothing being washed on an antique washboard and line dried year round.  We didn’t just keep a garden, we relied on our garden.  The good will of strangers often filled our dresser drawers and furnished our rooms.  The kindness of small-town Iowa banks and businesses made low monthly payments and no interest possible when major expenses came up around our house.  Medical care often came in the form of herbs and natural remedies grown in our back yard, and nothing was more important to my mom than keeping us healthy through good nutrition and preventative measures.

I stand in awe of all that was done to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table, and I don’t know if I will ever fully grasp how she was able to make it happen.  I now laugh at my own limited efforts to “cut costs” as we budget with significantly more money to meet the needs of a smaller family.  Although at age 12 I was quite ashamed of my mother’s meager provisions, today I can’t help but think my mother should be leading seminars across the country on how to make plenty out of nothing.  I suppose a daughter such as myself can never build a high enough pedestal for a mother such as mine.

A Lesson from the World on Gratitude

As this month has been filled with expressions of thankfulness leading into Thanksgiving Day, I have not been able to shake thoughts of my younger self that Christmas morning all those years ago.  The truth is, I am confident that I wanted to be thankful.  I’m sure I had visions of rejoicing in the gifts I would receive that day and genuinely thanking my mother for each one.  Afterall, I had spent much of November discussing thankfulness in school, right?

“What are you thankful for?” our teachers would ask every year, usually handing out a paper turkey or pilgrim to write our answers on.  By age twelve we may have even kept gratitude journals, if I remember correctly.  Our mission was fairly simple, think about the things in your life that you are glad to have, and express thanks by mentioning them in writing.  (I am still a bit confused about who exactly our thankfulness was directed toward, because I am quite sure it was not the pilgrims.)

Let’s fill in the blanks, shall we?  I am thankful for…

Turkey, my house, my school, my friends, my dog, my toys, my video games, my family, my STUFF.  I am thankful for my STUFF.  Mine.  Mine. Mine.  Stuff.  Stuff.  Stuff.

This was the picture of gratitude I was painting throughout my childhood.  We say thank you when we get stuff.  We are thankful because we have stuff.  Thankfulness is about being happy about the things we have.  So, logically, the more I have the more thankful I will be, right?

In that case, I was perfectly justified to express disgust that Christmas morning.  Clearly my mother had not given me enough STUFF to inspire a thankful attitude. 

Clearly.  The paper turkeys that had decorated the classroom (filled with lists of things I did not have and probably never would) only reinforced this understanding.  You see, these lists weren’t just helping us look at all we had and express “thankfulness,” they provided an early opportunity to compare ourselves with our peers, compete with one another, and take pride in our possessions.

(I can’t help but see the Thankful November posts on Facebook each day and think of these turkeys, but that is a topic for another day.)

Here’s a little break down of the things the world taught me about thankfulness:

  • Thankfulness was an opportunity to boast.
  • Thankfulness was motivated by pride.
  • Thankfulness was another word for idolatry.
  • Thankfulness was a materialistic religion.
  • Thankfulness was always happy to go shopping.

A Popular Trend

My observations above on the kind of gratitude I grew to embrace might sound simply awful to some of you.  You might be thankful in this moment that you never embraced such an ugly view of thanksgiving.  You may even be using your online voice to share with the world a REAL picture of a thankful heart, and you’re probably doing a good job of directing your gratitude to the God who says “give thanks in all circumstances.”

The truth is that thankfulness has emerged as somewhat of an obsession among evangelical Christians for quite some time now, and boy do we LOVE to be thankful.  God tells us to be thankful, and we are pleased to obey.  As an added benefit, we have found this thankful heart business to make us feel good, as well. BONUS! Right?

Somewhere in between my ungrateful Christmas memory, my thoughts on worldly gratitude, and the popularity of verbally expressing gratitude among Christians right now that is impossible to ignore, I’ve found myself overwhelmed with conviction I have struggled to articulate.  I sit here, unsettled, with a stinking suspicion that there is something very dangerous lurking in this trendy form of Christian gratitude that we have been “cultivating,” and I fear it may be something far worse than the ugly picture of worldly thankfulness I have painted above.  Worse, but closely related.

I’m wrestling with the scary realization that my definition and practice of thankfulness wasn’t just wrong when I was twelve, but that it has continued to be wrong (in a new way) as I’ve devoured Christian literature on the topic that far too closely resembles a teacher instructing me to write my thankful list on a turkey to share with the class.  I’m frightened, yes frightened, that I have been careless with this entire quest to give thanks to the Lord in all things, and I am suddenly confronted with the many parallels between the world’s lessons on gratitude and those I have adopted as “Christian” lessons on gratitude.

So the questions I have been seeking God on recently are:

  1. What does the command to ”give thanks” mean to YOU (God), and how have we distorted it?
  2. What do I need to repent of, and in what direction should I turn?

In Part II of this post, I hope to share what God has placed on my heart in response to these questions.  Join me, if you’re up to following my rabbit trails, and jump into the discussion as you feel led by commenting below!

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What I Really Had to Give Up

Nov13

I had been organizing a desk space in our basement to use for writing & other desk-worthy to-dos, and the blank spaces on the walls were begging for a picture or two.  As I considered my options, I remembered my trusty college diploma, framed and hiding in a drawer with other relics from my past; a souvenir of a time spent dreaming of professional greatness.

I found the frame and a wave of pride came over me.  I recalled the glory of graduation day, my honors displayed in a medallion around my neck and congratulatory hand shakes from the men and women who had granted me the grades to earn that medallion.  An open invitation stands, I was reminded, should I care to pursue graduate school at no cost.

The option to bulk up the letters behind my name was all too tempting.  Even so, I was engaged to be married and prepared to enter the workforce several states away with my hard-earned diploma in hand.  To do anything less would have been to let down the institution that provided me with the credentials I needed to really do something in this world. 

Oh, how my idea of “something” has changed in this short time.

My pride quickly faded as I considered the misunderstood path I have taken since receiving that diploma, to become a homemaker instead of a professional, to hang my degree in the basement instead of an office building.  I recalled conversations between myself and co-workers, as well as outspoken friends, when I shared of my desire to leave the workforce permanently.  They asked questions like, “If you just want to be a mom, why did you go to college?” and “Don’t you feel like you’re letting your degree go to waste?” and even, “You are going to give up your career and all that you’ve worked for to just be a mom?” 

My own husband recently asked if I feel like I am missing out on anything by staying home instead of pursuing a career.  He knows that leaving behind the professional world was not hard for me, and I would not claim to miss it.  He also knows I love my new job far too much to miss the old one.  Still, his question was an honest one that led me to think of an honest answer.

Do I feel like I’m missing out on anything?

Pondering this question led me to an unexpected conclusion.  I stumbled upon what I really had to give up, against my known will, and to my surprise it was sinful. 

If I am honest with myself, I must admit that my career goals were motivated more by a desire to make a name for myself and bring glory to myself than a heart’s desire to do everything in the name of the Lord for the purpose of His glory.  It was the fulfillment of these desires, these self-glorifying, sinful desires that I realized I have been missing out on and still struggle to go without at times.

I didn’t have to give up my career to glorify God in my life, but I did have to give up the sinful desires of my heart that heavily motivated that career:

I had to give up the pride I had in being acknowledged & rewarded for my abilities.

I had to give up the covetousness that led me to be tens of thousands of dollars in debt in order to have educational equality with my peers.

I had to give up the treasured lie that higher social status would result in a better life.

I had to give up the greed that convinced me truly valuable time was spent making money.

I had to give up the selfish & prideful ambitions I had in proving myself the best in my field of study and career path.

I had to give up the self-righteousness that led me to believe I was somehow better and more deserving than those with lesser achievements than I. 

I had to give up the vanity of being seen and noticed for my good works.

I had to give up the jealousy I had for the things the World values.

I had to give up the self-reliance I had built up as I learned to depend on my own abilities to meet my needs.

I had to give up the fear of man I had nurtured as I sought to please others in my classes and work environment.

Finally, I had to give up the desire to boast in myself while failing to boast in Jesus Christ. 

These are the things I really had to give up. The career was easy to leave, but the sinfulness it was nourishing was an unexpected sacrifice.

As the Lord refines us to become more like Christ, there are times I believe He starves us of food for our sinful desires.  In our hunger to fill these desires, by God’s grace we will be convicted of sin and further polished toward holiness.  I experienced refining fire when God pulled me out of the academic and professional world and starved my heart of the many worldly treasures that had been feeding me.

I could give myself more grace here and tell you that my ambitions were also rooted in the command to love others as yourself.  I did, in fact, pursue a career that opened doors to love on a great number of people in difficult circumstances, and I do love to help people in need for God’s glory.  Still, overall, I spent more time gathering glory for myself on this course than I did pointing others to the glory of God.  My actions may have been righteous, but my heart was not.  It is our hearts God is after.  A helping profession was an effective shield over a heart that needed to be stabbed with conviction for the sins hiding beneath.

No matter the paths God has us on, whether it is in our homes or working outside of the home, it is the condition of our hearts that either brings glory to God or takes it away.  My prayer is to always grow in the likeness of Christ as the refining fire continues to burn in my life on this path I am on.  God has called me to bring him glory, and it is clear that there are many things, some innocent and some not, that I must give up with gladness as I pursue his plans for me.

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A Confidence Problem

Aug23

You might say I inherited a confidence problem.

While one parent demonstrated extreme confidence and assertiveness to a fault, the other was plagued with fear and worry.  I grew up wavering from one extreme to another, exuding confidence to the point of arrogance for a season and then crippling back in fear and worry for the next.  When I was confident, I was too confident.  When I was insecure, you could have wrapped me in bubble wrap and I still would have shattered at the sound of critical words.  Even in confident moments, my fear of criticism and rejection deeply lingered.

I have since been adopted into the family of God, and I have inherited a confidence solution.

As a new creation, filled with the Holy Spirit, I put very little faith in my Earthly heredity.  Through Christ, I have been given new life and I am set free from the sins of this world.  With freedom, I am able to stand on God’s promises with confidence while maintaining a humble spirit.

Still, there are times that I slip back into insecure thoughts and fears, and Satan gains a stronghold.  At times without warning, I find myself shattered again by critical words or a harsh tone.  I cripple back in fear and let that fear silence me, at times for weeks.  I fall into a pattern of questioning myself, “What if this person doesn’t like me?”  “Did I say something to offend him/her?” “What if being honest with this person will cause them to think poorly of me?” And my nervous thoughts lead me into a path of lies and shallow faith.  I become quite useless as I grasp for confidence from sources other than Christ.

Yesterday, the Holy Spirit made me very aware that I have been letting this happen recently.  I was slowly setting aside my confidence in Christ and replacing it with fear of the thoughts and opinions of others.  Satan was winning, and I was letting him.  Recognizing this, I prayed through these misguided feelings and shared them with my husband and a close friend.  These simple steps pushed my patterns of wrong thinking towards God’s Word, and reminded me of what is true.  The kind of fear and insecurity I had been feeling was not from God, and today I am taking a stand against it.

As I seek to replace those lies with truth, I feel led to share parts of my battle weapon with you:

  • For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.  (2 Timothy 1:7)

  • Fear of man will prove to be a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is kept safe. (Proverbs 29:25)

  • Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.  (Matthew 5:11-12)

  • If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. (1 Peter 4:14)

  • Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts: Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults. (Isaiah 51:7)

  • Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:6-7)

  • The fruit of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever. (Isaiah 32:17)

Praise God that he not only gave us the power of the Holy Spirit, but the incredible sword of His Word to fight every battle!  As I stand on truth, God fills me with confidence against the lies of this world.  There is nothing on this Earth or in my flesh that can not be overcome by the blood of Jesus Christ, and my confidence flows from this knowledge.

Have you recently caught yourself in a cycle of insecurity and self-doubt? What verses come to mind as your battle weapons?  I’d love to hear them!

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If you liked this post you might also enjoy That time I punched an eight year old, Welcome to Lamp on a Stand, and Submission Recognition: Submission to the Underqualified Leader.

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Give me more GREY!

Jul27

Allow me to be grey.  And by “grey,” I mean VAGUE.

If you’re response to the title of this blog was to keep reading because you are interested in what I have to say about you-know-which book, you probably already know too much.

Let’s be honest, the book you’re thinking of is absolutely everywhere, and unfortunately there is very little “grey” about what you know. If you are like me, you already know what the book is about.  You probably know what the cover looks like.  You might even know a good portion of the story line.  You also know who of your Facebook friends has been reading it.  And finally, you probably know enough to conclude that you should not be reading it.

A month ago, I had never heard of the books that shall not be named.  Today, I could tell you more about them than I care to admit.  I have not read them.  I’ve never paged through them.  I didn’t read a summary or book review on Amazon.  Nope, I can’t credit any of those sources for my knowledge.

So where did I learn about the book?  Other Christians who were declaring their stance against it.  Other Christians who felt called to warn their readers of the impure nature within the pages of that book.  Other Christians who spread the word through Facebook, blogs, online comments, and Twitter that the book is nothing more than X-rated entertainment for women.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the warning.  Sometimes it is useful to know a little bit about parts of the entertainment business that are sucking in the hearts of those around us.  Perhaps what is most alarming and thought-provoking about this particular book is the large and enthusiastic following it has attracted.

And you know how people are: If a crowd gathers around a scene, we want to work our way inside to see what all the fuss is about.

But as I said before, I know too much.  My guess is that you know too much, as well.  I saw the crowd gathering, and I heard a gentle warning from a woman who kept her distance.  Sadly, that gentle warning spiked enough of my curiosity that I snuck over to the edge of the crowd to hear more of the details.  I thought, “Hey, these are people I know and trust, people who believe the things I believe, so surely it can’t hurt to get this close.”

But maybe it can hurt.

You can’t un-read what you’ve read.  You can’t un-see what you’ve seen.  First Corinthians 6:18 says, “Flee from sexual immorality…”  FLEE.  Colossians 3:5 says, “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.” Put to death.

Scripture is full of firm warnings against sexual immorality.  We are to flee from it.  RUN! Put it to death! If we see a crowd gathered around something that is WIDELY known as sexually immoral, what should we do?

FLEE.

By indulging our curiosity, we are indulging the desires of the flesh.  The consequences of this indulgence will hurt in ways you may not realize.  It might be as simple as building a judgemental spirit towards those that are embracing the sexually immoral nature.  (Is it possible that just reading the title of this post had you thinking judgemental thoughts?) It might lead your mind away from what is pure and inspire your imagination to take you places that are JUST as sexually immoral as the book I am speaking of above.  It might lead you to bring the topic up in conversation for the sake of gossip and worldly conversation and draw others into the temptation of this curiosity.

So I plead with you: If you care to warn others of the dangers of sexually immoral idols, like a book or other forms of entertainment, do so in a way that is as GREY as can be.  Simply stating, “I know enough to know that it is sexually immoral, and we are to flee from it,” is a great place to start it and end it.  Anything more, I believe, is keeping what is sexually immoral alive, whether you realize it or not.

Put it to death, my friends, and focus on all that is pure and holy.

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If you liked this post you might also enjoy Are you a First Thessalonians 5 Woman?, First Impressions, or A Lonely Calling
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That time I punched an eight year old…

Jul17

You’re looking at the scene of the crime.

There we were, minding our own business. (That’s always how these stories start, right?) My 16 month old son and I were enjoying some time outside at one of our favorite playgrounds. At his age, he is fairly steady on his feet but still unable to maintain his balance well if something brushes against him or he is not on level ground. This particular park is our favorite because it has separate play areas for different age groups, including toddlers.

One of our favorite things to do at the park is “drive” the steering wheels located at various locations, including the one in the engine of this adorable train. On this particular day, there were several older kids lingering in the play area for small children. As Joshua approached the front of the train to take the wheel, several big kids stormed over and jumped over the sides of the train and took over the engine.

Joshua stood at the back of the engine and stared at the rowdy bunch of train robbers. I stood by cautiously, wanting to let him observe their play time but also making sure the older kids were aware of his curious presence.

Then it happened.

One of the boys, probably about eight years old, was standing on top of the train. He had been watching Joshua a bit and knew he was standing nearby. Or at least I thought this was so. Without warning, he leaped backwards from his perch and landed on my little boy. I watched as his foot planted itself on Joshua’s head and knocked him to the ground.

I am not one to “react” to my child’s injuries. I prefer to stay calm and not escalate the emotions of the incident. In this case, however, I think my emotions felt greater than my toddler’s. I snatched him up from the ground and did my best to comfort him. Tears filled his eyes and he appeared to be quite shocked by what had happened. A small bump began to swell on his ivory scalp. Immediately I felt anger towards the little boy without a name.

So I punched the kid.

Okay, okay, I didn’t REALLY punch him. I wouldn’t even say I wanted to punch him. I did, however, feel very strongly that this child should have been punished. He hurt my baby, and there were no thoughts of grace or forgiveness running through my mind. I wasn’t thinking about being a “lamp on a stand,” in fact, I was quite fine with hiding the lamp under a basket for a bit.

I looked around the playground, hoping that somewhere this child’s mother had seen what had happened and was rushing over to teach her child a lesson. Instead, I saw other mothers, not his, staring at me waiting for what would happen next. I was reminded of Hebrews 12:1 -

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us…”

So great a cloud of witnesses, it says. Not only were there a half-dozen mothers watching for how I would handle this situation, but there are ALWAYS spiritual witnesses all around us. In this moment, my desire was to bring justice by my own hand. I was weighed down with the anger of my flesh. Even in these moments, though, there is a race being run. Especially in these moments.

I wish I could tell you that I breathed deep, reminded myself of the fruits of the spirit, and tuned into the spirit’s leading on how to handle this situation. I wish I could tell you that I politely asked the boy to introduce me to a parent and this led to a beautiful opportunity to share the gospel with a family looking for hope. I wish I could tell you that I felt overwhelming mercy and forgiveness towards this boy who clearly had done wrong only by carelessness, not maliciousness. I wish I could tell you that I at least spoke to the boy in a gracious way before parting ways.

None of the above did I do. I felt anger and resentment building within me as the young boy and I stood staring at each other. Be Christ to all people, I thought. Yet all I could muster up at that time was a calm voice to say, “Do you realize you just jumped onto my child’s head?” The boy nodded and gave a barely audible “uh huh.” His careless response angered me more. I replied, “Your foot landed directly on his head and knocked him down,” still calm, but losing patience. The boy nodded and looked away. I stared a bit longer, waiting…hoping he would at least say he was sorry or tell me that it was only an accident. Instead, he returned to playing with his friends as if it never happened.

So then I really punched him.

Don’t worry, I’m still kidding. But I think my anger peaked upon seeing the child’s indifference towards my sad baby boy. So what did I do, you wonder? I walked away with my child, put my mind on other things, and enjoyed our play time as though nothing ever happened. I later observed the boy call a woman “mom,” and I knew that his mother had not seen what had happened. I contemplated approaching her, but wasn’t confident that I knew what to say.

As I told the story to my husband later that evening, though still shocked by what had happened, I was able to reconsider the situation with a calm spirit. My feelings toward the boy had softened, and I was imagining what home life may be like for him. I was realizing that his blank stare and his quiet “uh huh” was more than likely the reflex he had developed as he braced himself for harsh discipline. Looking back, my observations tell me that this boy was not indifferent, he was scared of what I might do. Maybe he actually thought I might punch him? I know it is possible, remembering I have counseled many young boys from broken homes.

By God’s grace, I did not explode into the protective mother that I wanted to become in that moment. While I didn’t turn it into an opportunity to be Christ or share Christ in an incredible way, the Holy Spirit was on my side and is my only explanation for the calm tone of voice I was able to use.

I’m left wondering, though, what was everyone waiting for as they watched me in that moment? What would they have done? What would you have done?

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First Impressions

Jul5

I glanced into my empty coffee cup one morning with plans to grab a refill, and this is what I found.  What was left in the cup had formed into a shape we all can recognize, a heart.  I snapped the picture and shared it on Facebook without a caption, knowing that all who look at it will not need any help seeing it.  Your first impression of this image is probably something like this: an empty cup, previously filled with coffee, now holding a small portion of coffee that has pooled into a heart shape.

I have been thinking a lot about first impressions lately and the pressure to always make a ”good” one.  As a family in ministry, it can be easy to consider a “good” first impression to be a flawless presentation of self, pure and righteous, worthy to be followed and respected.  There is a temptation to try to be the person that you think others expect you to be, and strive for perfection in meeting their expectations.  This kind of thinking not only leads you to a self-focused approach to ministry and an overall self-centered way of life, but it also misleads your fellow Christians into believing that they too should strive to live similarly.

Recently my prayers have often lingered on a desire to present myself to others in a way that pleases God and not other people.  I have frequented Paul’s epistles as I have pondered God’s idea of a “good” first impression, and I find myself relieved by Paul’s transparency and humility as he ministered to the churches, pastors, and brothers in Christ through his letters.  While Paul was a man of God worthy to be followed and respected, he always drew his authority from the call of God on his life and the power of the holy spirit within him only by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  He did not shy away from sharing the depth of his sinfulness and the depravity from which Christ rescued him.

I love what is written in 1 Timothy 12-17 (HCSB):

I give thanks to Christ Jesus our Lord who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, appointing me to the ministry— one who was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an arrogant man. But I received mercy because I acted out of ignorance in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord overflowed, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” —and I am the worst of them. But I received mercy for this reason, so that in me, the worst of them, Christ Jesus might demonstrate His extraordinary patience as an example to those who would believe in Him for eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

“I am the worst of them,” he says.  Paul’s words to Timothy help me forget the pressures of “good” first impressions.  I do have a desire for others to perceive me in a certain way, but it is definitely not a picture of a flawless pastor’s wife who has it all together and has nothing to be ashamed of in her life.  I want to be seen for what I truly am: A sinner who has received mercy and grace in Jesus Christ.  A sinner who can only boast in Jesus Christ, Jesus who has extraordinary patience with me as I repeatedly fail to do good.  A sinner who is so grateful for the grace that has been given to her that she can not help but share about her maker and her savior and give him the glory for all that is good in her life.

I want people to know that I was once filled with sinful desires and worldly passions, following nothing but the course of this world and acting as though God did not exist.  I want them to know that I have been redeemed through Jesus Christ and the holy spirit is within me, but that sanctification is a grueling process at times.  More than anything, I want them to know that I am the farthest thing from perfect, but grace and mercy abound in my life because of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

So, basically, I have been thinking a lot about what it would look like if we were able to completely abandon our concern for self-glorifying first impressions and consistently expose ourselves as redeemed sinners with hungry hearts for more of God’s love and grace in our lives.  Just as you were able to identify the heart in the picture above, I want others to be able to look at my life from the outside and identify the heart behind my words and actions without a caption or explanation.  I realize it is not that simple, and explanations can add much more to your living testimony, but I can imagine very few people coming in contact with Paul for more than a minute without knowing his heart was focused on the glory of God rather than his own “good” image.

Sadly, modern ministry has somehow distracted many into thinking that first impressions are about looking attractive to outsiders.  I pray that my motives will move further and further away from this kind of thinking.  I feel like this is a topic I revisit year after year because of the recurring temptation to please others before pleasing God.

How have you encountered this kind of temptation, and what keeps you focused on Christ in a world full of man-centered expectations?

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A warning and confession.

May26

My back yard tulip before full bloom.

Before you decide you want to let my writing invade your daily life, I want to let you into my own head for a moment. Consider this fair warning to back out now.

I chart my thoughts. I learn best with my eyes, and what I can not see I must imagine visually before I fully understand. I like symetry, clear lines, intentional color, and definable contrast. I look at chaos and immediately begin assembling a path to clarity, creating something I can frame or box up. I excell in a challenge that presents well defined expectations, and I am most efficient when I can identify a clear starting and ending point in my work. I crave patterns, predictability, consistency, and balance. In college, my professors often labeled me as a “methodical” thinker or “very organized” because the structure of my work followed a very clear pattern and often included charts and graphs. No, I was not studying math or architecture. I was studying human behavior and social theories. I am even guilty of charting the qualities I was seeking in my future husband, and to be honest I have charted my desires for the content of this blog.

Why am I telling you this, you wonder? While in several areas of life, this way of thinking is a great strength, it is also one of my greatest weaknesses. So as I seek to write a blog that brings glory to God, that is faithful to what is TRUE and that is careful to teach only what is biblical, I want to confess some shortcomings in advance. *gulp* So keeping the above description in mind, here are some things to look out for:

  • I can be quick to oversimplify a concept for the sake of clarity, but at the expense of scriptural depth.
  • I may be tempted to overlook a passage or well-respected opinion if I struggle to understand it, or simply can not fit it into one of my “boxes.”
  • I can lean too comfortably into legalism with a well defined list of do’s and don’ts, forgetting that it is by the grace of God alone that I am even capable of following such laws, and by grace through faith that we are sanctified.
  • I sometimes take something undeniably gray, and find a way to make it seem black and white. This is a distortion of truth.
  • I can get completely wrapped up in stating what I believe is right, while completely ignoring the prideful and insensitive tone in which I am stating it. (A dead give-away that while I may be saying what is right, the heart behind saying it is completely wrong.)
  • While I treasure structure and clear expectations, I become anxious and/or apathetic when I’m facing something ambiguous or open-ended, sometimes avoiding or ignoring it altogether if possible. (This is clearly a problem in everyday life, and can definitely hinder me when trying to start a blog with no clear expectations!)

It is my sincere desire to NOT demonstrate these tendencies on this blog. My prayer is that as I seek to be the lamp on a stand that my words would truly bring glory to God and not misrepresent his truth in any way. Consider this post an invitation to hold me accountable to this. As with anything you read, your standard of truth must be the perfect Word of God. So be discerning! (But please, be gentle with me!)