Common Ground

I knew I was on to something new and scary and amazingly freeing the day my friend Katie, walked into my house unexpectedly and I didn't kill over and die.  Katie was my neighbor and our friendship had just begun to blossom, but our relationship mostly consisted of sitting out in the her front yard, watching our kids play in the street.  I was just in the beginning stages of understanding that I did not have to be perfect, but on this day I was pushed to a new place I didn't know I needed desperately to go.

That day Katie waltzed through the front door and called out my name, walking through the dining room on her way to the kitchen, she looked into my laundry room and said, "Wow, am I glad I saw that."  It looked like a clothes volcano had erupted.  She hadn't even made it into the kitchen yet, so I knew she was about to be relieved of any idea that I was the perfect mom and wife, but I realized that day how much I needed her to know that.  I needed her to take me down off the pedestal of perfection I could never actually maintain.

I was starting to understand a little of what Paul was saying in 2 Corinthians 12:9

"He said to me, 'My GRACE is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in WEAKNESS.' Therefore, I will GLADLY BOAST all the more in my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me."

For years I had been trying so hard to be the perfect wife and mother... I was on a mission of self-improvement to show myself, the world and God that I was good enough.  But, the truth was I was a overwhelmed mom of 5 young children, one who was still in diapers.  I was homeschooling 4 little people and any honest HS mom will tell you, that during the school year, it's either teach your kids OR have a clean house, but it's close to impossible to do both.  I couldn't keep up with laundry or dishes... so there was never going to be a day that was good for Katie to just drop in.  I'm so thankful that she pushed me out of my comfort zone that day.  What wasn't lost on me that day was her relief in being able to look behind the curtain and see who I really was.  She was happy to know that my laundry was piled up and my dishes were over-flowing and the most amazing thing is, from that day on she always came over to lend me a hand.

I learned a valuable lesson that day...  If I would be open and vulnerable and truthful about my weaknesses God would use that to help me where I was overwhelmed.

It's human nature to want to show your good side, to close the laundry room door, so no one is able to see the real us.  That's why Facebook and Instagram are so popular.  We take 55 selfies just to get perfect one, making sure our neck is stretched out and that crooked tooth is not showing too much, we choose the perfect filter and make sure the lighting is just right... all because we want people to see the good stuff.  We share our kid's achievements and our vacation pics, our date night selfies and nights out with friends.  We don't share that fight we just had with our spouse, or the money problems that plague us, we don't share that we just cried our eyes out in the bathroom, because we can't handle life.  We don't talk about the kid that's failing math or the one on drugs.  Of course I don't recommend sharing your most personal details with the world wide web...  but the thing is that a lot of times we treat our closest friends the same way.  We don't want people to see the mess that we really are.

But, I LOVE what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 11:30 "If I must boast, I will boast about the things that show my weakness."

Paul had a lot of achievements to boast in, but when he met Jesus, He realized that all the stuff that he could boast in was worthless.

Paul said in Philippians, "But everything that was gain to me, I have considered as loss because of Christ.  More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the SURPASSING value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord."

When Paul met Jesus and realized that no earthly achievement was able to save him, he considered it all worthless.  When He received the lavish GRACE of God, he was willing to let everything else he had hoped in fall away.  Only Jesus mattered.

I think about the mom wars...  you know working mom vs stay at home mom, breast feeding mom vs bottle feeding mom, granola mom vs twinky mom (I think I made that up), but you get the point.  When we boast about what we think we do well or the decisions we have made, we divide ourselves into groups.

You know that awkward moment when you met a totally adorable new mom at the park and you strike up a conversation, everything is going wonderfully, UNTIL you mention that you're a (fill in the blank) mom.  All of the sudden everything goes quiet and the conversation dies.  There seems to be no common ground...

But what happens when you have that honest moment with a friend and you share your struggle?  In that beautiful, vulnerable moment two souls, breath a sigh of relief and say, "Wow, I'm glad I saw that."

Think about sitting down talking basketball with Lebron James...  how would you feel leaving that conversation?  Talking to one of the "greats" would make me feel like a loser, who could never measure up.  But, imagine having a discussion about the struggles of parenting with him instead.  Imagine him sharing the struggles of balancing being a good dad and having to travel so much, imagine him saying he is burdened with guilt when he can't be there?  How would you feel then?  Empathetic? Compassionate? Connected?  Would you find some common ground when you saw his weakness and vulnerability and wouldn't that make you feel much closer to him, because he allowed you a glimpse behind the curtain of greatness to the real man inside.

"Therefore if I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness." Apostle Paul.

It's still hard to open my door wide and let the world see the truth, but the freedom is worth it.  So, come on in, peek in my laundry room, check out my over-flowing sink and let's find some common ground.

To Die For.

A pen moving furiously, a hand trying to keep up with a mind more complex than most, paper holding truths hidden in mysteries for thousands of years, a heart so overwhelmed with gratitude, it didn't matter that he is imprisoned?  The chain, of no consequence, he had found freedom that Rome could not take away.  Being under constant guard, nothing more than a chance to share the Gospel, every time the guard changed.

The words on the page, a letter to his brothers and sisters in the churches around the world.  Encouragement to hold on to the message they had received through him.  The message he would ultimately give his life for.

Paul once zealous for the God of Israel and ready to rid her of all evil, had been the chief tormentor of the local churches. Now after coming face to face with King Jesus, Lord of all the earth, Messiah, Savior and hearing the message clearly for the first time, was a new man.  His single-minded devotion to Christ and to sharing His Good News is unequalled.  Nothing will stop him from heralding the Kingdom of Christ Jesus.

The letter he writes pierces the heart of any believer in Christ:

"Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually advanced the gospel, so that it has become known in the whole imperial guard...that my imprisonment is because of Christ...  18)  What does it matter?  Only that in every way... Christ is proclaimed, and IN THIS I REJOICE."  Philippians 1:12-18

How could the man rejoice when he was sitting in prison?  When he had lost position, power, prestige, friends and freedom?  How could he say that the only thing that matters is Christ being proclaimed?

"To live is Christ and to die is gain?"   How could he utter these words and live them to the fullest?  What happened to him on that road to Damascus that so completely shifted his world view?

What teaching would Martin Luther, standing before the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, not recant on penalty of excommunication or death?  What truth did he hold to that was more precious than life?

What truth so enraptured John Knox, that he would allow himself to be chained night and day in the galleys for two years, convicted as a common criminal, instead of recanting his beliefs?

 Peter, James, John, Thomas, Philip all dying for the sake of the gospel...  Why was their message so dangerous?  Why were they so willing to give their lives for the advancement of the gospel?

What is the gospel?  It's the "Good News".  The message that the conquering King was victorious.  The message they were proclaiming is the rightful King of all creation had come and He had vanquished His enemies, by his death on the cross.  By giving himself as a sin offering, He had been the payment for our sins, by rising again, He had defeated our worst enemy, death.  On the cross He had accomplished what we COULD NOT accomplish no matter how hard we tried to keep the law.

When Paul met face to face with King Jesus, he knew that everything he had been striving for his whole life no longer mattered.  He saw in Christ, the peace of God toward man.  He saw in Christ that he no longer had to strive to earn the favor of God.  He no longer had to try to be good enough.  He saw that through Christ his sins had been forgiven, once and for all and he now had peace with God and access to the Father through the Son. He would rather die than go back to trying to earn his own salvation.  He would live out every last breath sharing the good news with anyone who would listen to him.

Peter, James, John, Martin Luther, John Knox and thousands like them would gave their lives on crosses, in arenas, attacked by wild animals, tortured to death on stakes, beaten, burned in the fire all for the sake of the good news they would never be able to recant.

"Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion?  COME TO ME.  Get away with me and you'll recover your life.  I'll show you how to take real rest.  Walk with me and work with me- watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of GRACE.  I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."   Matthew 11:28-30, MSG translation.

When you come to Jesus and you realize He has done all the work, you can rest.  You no longer have to prove anything to anyone.  Your standing before the God of Heaven is secure IN CHRIST and that truth is worth dying for.

I tried to be good...

I remember sitting in front of the TV, nursing a baby, scrolling mindlessly through a 100 channels when something on the screen jarred me out of my zombie state.  I was sucked into to marathon veg fest of "17 Kids and counting".   Right there on that couch I had finally found what I had been looking for... "the perfect Christian woman".   Michelle Duggar became the model that I pattered my life after.  She seemed to me to be exactly what every Christian woman should be and I wanted to be just like her.

Let me back track a little...  Growing up I was a wild child, least likely to succeed, bottom of my class and many other things that don't really matter now, but in my heart that's not really the girl I wanted to be.  Now that I'm an adult I can look back at my teenage rebel self and see with different eyes and I love that girl now, but I hated her then.  I did stuff I hated and I couldn't figure out why or how to not do it again.

At 19 I heard that greatest news of my life.  For the first time in 19 years someone explained the Gospel to me and this what they told me...

God created us.  He set some rules for his creation that were for their own good.  People broke those rules.  Sin separated us from God.  He had a plan to restore us to himself, because He loved us too much for us to be eternally separated from Him.  He sent His own Son to pay the penalty we could not pay.  If we accepted through faith the GIFT that was given to us we could be reconciled to God for eternity.

I could agree there was a God, but up until that point in my life I didn't know much about him, except He wanted me to be good and I didn't know how, so I agreed with all that.  I could not ever be good enough for God.  In fact I was really shocked when the church didn't catch on fire as my mom marched us down the center aisle to the front of the church, to sit close enough to the "holy man" to get sprayed with spittle when he got really excited.

When He shared the Gospel (good news) about Jesus I knew I had never in my life heard any better news and even though I had no idea what it meant to give my life to him, I handed over my messy life to Him and received His clean life.

I started going to church all the time (and liked it), started reading my Bible ( and LOVED it), started praying and talking to God about all my worries, fears, hopes and dreams...  I was astounded with this new experience with Jesus.

I knew I was supposed to be a new creation now and in a lot of ways I was, but what I didn't realize was that I still had all that old junk in there too.  It wasn't mysteriously gone.  I didn't know that God was going to be working on me from the inside out for the rest of my life.

Sadly, after a while I figured out that I still wasn't good.  I tried really hard for a while...  but some old things die hard.  I decided to give up trying...  so I quit going to church, stopped reading my Bible and I definitely couldn't pray, because I couldn't stand to think about God knowing all my junk.

I ran as far away from God as I could go, but He NEVER left me.  He continually called me back.  He whispered His love to my soul.  He drew me in with His promise that no matter what I have ever done or will ever do, NOTHING could cause Him to give up on me.  During that time I tried to drown out His voice so I could go on with my life without hearing from Him, but it never worked.

Against my will I ended up at church on a Sunday morning, feeling sick to my stomach, knowing I was polluting the people around me, worrying what rumors they might have heard about me, and wishing I could be anywhere else.  Standing up front the preacher passionately shared the story of the prodigal son.  Telling all who would listen about the son who had wasted his inheritance on partying and prostitutes and found himself cleaning pig pens and eating slop.  How the son decided to turn around and go home and beg forgiveness, but as He was approaching His Father, who had been waiting for him every day, started running to him and wrapped him up in his embrace. The Father wrapped his robe around him, restoring him to the family and then throwing a party to celebrate his home-coming.

The second best news of my life wrapped around my soul that day.  I promised myself that day I would do whatever I had to do to make up to my Father all that I had wasted.  I still didn't understand how GOOD God was.  I didn't understand that there would be many more times in my life that I would have to turn back to my Father and that He would ALWAYS have open arms for me.  I didn't understand GRACE.

Grace- favor, love and acceptance that I COULD NEVER EARN.

I wanted to put as much distance between me and that girl who had wasted her life.  I didn't want anything in my life to resemble that girl I was.

That's where Michelle Duggar comes in.  If I copied her and did what she did then maybe I could finally be good enough.  So I started growing my hair long, wearing only skirts, making sure my house was perfect and my children were well-behaved.  I tried to talk with a sugar-sweet voice, I tried to be the perfect wife and mother.

I found out it was really hard to be someone else.  I really missed my old faded blue-jeans, and I'm not really a great house cleaner, so my house was always a mess (so no one could stop-by, I would die 50 slow deaths), my hair starts breaking off after it gets passed my shoulders and if you know me at all, you KNOW I don't have a sugar-sweet voice.  My kids talk about farting and every other in-appropriate thing in the world and sometimes my husband and I have heated exchanges that would disqualify me for perfect wife.

The harder I tried to be like her the more I felt like a failure.  I wanted to be good enough, but striving to be someone that I perceived to be good, was more like a full-time job.  The heavy burden starting making me anxious and I didn't want to be around anyone, because I felt like people were always judging me... and they thought I was judging them.  I started to suffer with depression and I HATED my life.

A friend at church, who had seen the inner struggle and who was smart enough to know that I was trying to EARN what had already been given to me, handed me a Bible study called "Stuck".  The first week the verses were all centered in Ephesians chapter 1-2.  That week I reread those chapters repeatedly until they were imprinted in my mind...  and I heard the 3rd best news of my life...

"For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do."  Eph 2:10

Time is too short to share all the verses that lead up to this one, but the basic thing that struck my heart like a lightning bolt that day was that God created me (individually) for reasons that He decided long before I was born.  He made me ME!!!  That day I quit trying to be someone else.  I still have a great love for Michelle as a woman, who obviously loves Jesus, BUT that day I felt like chains had been removed from my body.  I felt for the first time in my life the true freedom of GRACE.

For the first time in my life I knew that I was never going to be good enough for myself or anybody else and that was ok.  The freedom of knowing that I could NEVER do anything to earn God's favor was life-giving news.

Knowing that God loved me infinitely more than I could understand on my best day and my worst day set me free from earthly expectations (mine and others).

I'm not going to do the "right" things all the time and that's ok...  I'm not going to respond the right way or speak kindly all the time.  I'm never going to be perfect and that's some good news!!!

Not Another Day.

Countless journals entries filled with tears, calling out for rescue from my faceless enemy.  The one who haunts my sleeping hours, the one who steals my joy during the day.  The worry bringing into focus only my fears and failure.  When will you finally come and help me?  But, if I'm honest I would have to say, again?  You have rescued me from this prison before, for me to only run back once again.  

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results.  Maybe, I'm insane.  

I see myself in the Children of Israel as the spies return from the Promised Land, bringing back their bounty and sharing tales of beautiful landscapes truly filled with plenty.  The initial excitement of seeing two men carry a pole between them laden with a single huge cluster of grapes, juicy red pomegranates and delicious figs, food they had never seen in Egypt, is contagious.  Hearing the men report back to Moses, "Indeed the land is flowing with milk and honey," must have caused waves of frenzied excitement to flow through the crowds.  But just as swiftly as they had rejoiced, the rest of the report causes fear to radiate and pulse from person to person and from one family to the next.  Giants, fortified cities and enemies too fierce and numerous for a bunch of newly released slaves to face.  

All of Israel begins to cry out and complain against Moses and Aaron, accusing them of bringing the whole assembly out into the wilderness to die.  Accusing God of allowing their wives and children to become plunder and finally crying out to go back to the very land of oppression they had just been miraculously delivered from.  

The Israelites feared the people of the land more than they feared the God, who had parted the Red Sea for them to walk through and then drowned their enemies in the turbulent waters.  They forgot to remember in their panic that the One True God was fighting for them.  And a sad thing happened that day...  God gave them over to their fears.  That generation spent the next 40 years walking around the same mountain and dying in the same desert.  Choosing to live by sight and not walk in faith cost them the abundance that God had for them.

Oh, they were able to live to a good old age and God fed them with manna from heaven.  He supernaturally kept their shoes and clothes from wearing out and they lived a comfortable, faithless life in the wilderness.  They never really had to face any hardship or fight any battles.  They were safe and protected by the presence of God every day.  They walked out of their tents every morning and picked manna from the ground and drank water from the springs and moved when God moved and stayed when He was still, but they never saw all the good that God had for them.  They never again tasted grapes, pomegranates and figs.  They never tasted the honey from the new land, they never saw those walled fortresses collapse, they never saw enormous armies put to flight, they never lived in houses they didn't build and harvest crops they didn't plant.  

14,600 days they walked around the same mountain until they died.  

I don't want to walk around this mountain ONE. MORE. DAY.  

Not another day.  There may be giants, but who can be against me IF God be for me?  There may be walled cities, but God can knock those walls down.  There may be warriors, and I may be only a newly freed slave, BUT God is fighting for me.  There may be weapons I've never seen and chariots and horses, BUT I will trust in the NAME OF MY GOD.  

One thing I do NOT want to do is die in this wilderness because I was too afraid to take what was rightfully mine.   The Giants in my mind may scorn, they may laugh, but if I can help it, the fear that bullies me now will come face to face with my God.  

I want to spend the next 14,600 days watching God do things that I never thought possible.  I want the abundant faith-filled life that Jesus promised to those who believed in Him.  I don't want to just see the land from a distance, I want to walk in the length, the width of it.  I want to trade my comfort for your best.  

Fear and Faith can't cohabitate, so Lord help me walk in Faith for the rest of my days.  

"Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to Him MUST BELIEVE that He exists and is the rewarder of those who seek Him."  Hebrews 11:6

"By FAITH our ancestors won God's approval." Hebrews 11:2

Faith is the evidence, of what you believe.  Faith is the action you take in accordance to what you say you believe about God.  Let's not let fear hold us hostage one more day!  Take that step of faith.