Ready, set, go

Last week I bought a computer. I have needed one for a while, but my desires to travel left the computer budget very low. But I needed to write and having a computer is the best way for me to do that. I say I needed to write and not wanted to write for a reason. Words were pouring out of me and I started keeping them in my iphone or on a notebook. The problem with the notebook is I go through a lot of notebooks and can never remember where I kept the one with the words that meant something. Hence the computer purchase. I haven't blogged in a while, well a long while. I am still suffering from the daily headaches and am still trying to live a very honest and forthright life in the midst of the pain. The new struggle has been finding the line between being honest and whining. I think I am getting there though. As I live this honest life, I have noticed how much I lack in being honest with myself. It's hard to let yourself know yourself. Sounds funny, but it's true. At least in my case anyway. So here you will find some honest thoughts and perceptions, what God is doing in me and what I am doing about it.

Monday morning Holiness

It's Monday morning and I am listening to a worship album that I love. I dont really feel worshipful, but I a
going to listen to it anyway. I am working and not really paying to much attention to the songs until the singer sings "I want to be Holy" it's Monday morning and I don't want to be Holy. I want to be in bed, I had a really rough night. I want to be well, I want to be right, but I Holy, well that sounds like a lot of work. Colossions 3:12 -13 says Therefore as Gods Chosen people, Holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another... Okay, I told you being Holy on Monday morning is hard. Verse 15 says Let the peace of Jesus rule in your hearts, since you were called to peace. And be thankful. So that's where I'm starting. I'm going to LET the peace of Jesus fall on me and I am going to be thankful that his peace is available to me on
Monday morning! I trust that if I allow the peace of Jesus to dwell in me I will then grow to desire to be Holy. Friends, we have to start somewhere.

Waiting

We spend a lot of time waiting. I don't think most people are good at waiting. We have all had a tantrum while waiting for customer service on the phone, or the few extra minutes in the drive through line. Waiting is hard for us. Waiting for God is not any easier. It never has been. When God used Moses to free the Israelites, we know they we very inpatient
God had provide food, water and protection for the Isrealites. Moses went up to Mt. Sinai to meet with God. The Israelites hated waiting for Moses so they burned all their gold and made a golden calf to worship. Of course we know that a piece of metal can not bring freedom and hope. I think the Israelites knew that too. But the need for NOW trumped salvation. Not much has changed in the human condition. We have replaced God with politics. We expect the government to bring freedom and hope. We have replaced God with money, we expect money to bring freedom and hope. Deep down we know they aren't the answer, but waiting is hard. Waiting sucks! God will give direction. He gives direction.
Philippians 3:15-21
 15 All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16 Only let us live up to what we have already attained.
 17 Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters, and just as you have us as a model, keep your eyes on those who live as we do. 18 For, as I have often told you before and now tell you again even with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. 19 Their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is set on earthly things. 20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
Paul tells us our citizenship is in heaven, and we await for the Savior from there. It's hard. My favorite part of this writing is in verse 15 where Paul says if you think differently, God will make it clear to you. And he will!

Lent thoughts

I found Jesus through the late singer Keith Green. I was 5 years old when my parents started following Jesus. They were rock and rollers and so at the the time the replacement to rock and roll was Keith Green. We listened to a lot of Keith Green. I have this amazing memory of picking up a teenager boy on our way to church every Sunday morning, he was a rock and roll drummer so I thought he was so cool. We would listen to Keith Green and all loudly sing along. The passion Keith sang with, I remember thinking is the way everyone should feel about Jesus. Keith sang with a sense of urgency and aching, and it resided in me, even as a child.
My dad was working in Lima, Ohio and we had gone there for the summer to be with him. We stayed at Holiday Inn and it had a pool. My brother and I spent most of our days swimming, We were getting ready for bed and my parents and my brother and I were watching the evening news laying in our beds and they announced Keith Green died in a plane crash. I imagined after the way I felt that day was the way the disciples felt when Jesus died. I was only 6, but I remember that day more clear than yesterday.
I found it hard to believe
Someone like you cared for me
You put this love in my heart
I tried but could not refuse
You gave me no time to choose
You put this love in my heart
Not often does someone come around who moves your soul. I was blessed to have this happen at such a young age. For years I sang along with Keith and I would imitate his passion and then one day his passion for Jesus became my passion. Today is the second day of lent, and I was trying to find something inspirational to pray, and my mind went right to Keith. My lent prayer today is to be willing to live life full of conviction and passion for Jesus Christ. You put this love in my heart and I am thankful, I prayer for strength to live it out.

His Grace is...

I went to church this Sunday. I haven't been to church since Halloween. It's really hard for me to get moving in the morning, it's the time when my headaches are the worse. So I haven't been to a church service in months. It's been hard. I miss worshipping with my community. I made myself go this week because it was Royal Oak Vineyard's 10th anniversary and there was going to be testimonies of the impact the community and God has made in people's lives. I am a sucker for testimonies. The church I grew up in had a second service on Sunday evenings and after a time of worship, people would give what we called "Praise Reports". This was my favorite part about church growing up. In Sunday school they would tell amazing stories of miracles and the mighty ways God moved, but I didn't know those people, I knew the people who stood up on Sunday evening who said that they were sick and now healed or that there son came home after being gone for years. I knew those people and I knew God was alive. So I love testimonies, and I wish we stood up and gave them more often. This week hearing how God has worked so amazingly in others lives had impact on me, let me explain.

After the testimonies the worship band sang a song called "Your grace is enough". I couldn't sing along. For months I have felt that his grace isn't enough. I have had a headache everyday for 21 months. Some days the pain is so intense that I can't function, think or keep my eyes open. These days are more than not. I have been desperate, so yes I feel like his grace isn't enough.

Here's the thing, I heard these amazing testimonies and I was filled with joy for these people that I love to hear how God has set them free or is moving in there lives. I was reminded that I serve a God who is alive. I still feel like I need God to intervene in my situation, I still feel like his grace isn't enough in this moment, but here is something I was reminded of, he is faithful and his grace will be enough.

So if God does something small, medium or large in your life, please don't keep it a secret. We need to hear these "Praise Reports"!

Living honestly

I promised God that as I walked on this new challenging journey, I would not frost everything over with "I am
Good". I promised to be honest. That sounds like something I should already be doing, right? I should be saying right, yes I live honestly and openly. But it's not true. When people ask how I am, no matter what, I usually answer "I'm good". Close friends ask and I say, "I'm good". People are comfortable with good, they are not so comfortable with "well I'm in excruciating daily pain, I don't sleep and I'm depressed. But I promised God that I wouldn't hide behind being comfortable and allowing others to be comfortable. And we all know God does not mind that we are not comfortable.
Which reminds me of a church billboard I saw a few weeks ago. It said "This year, try Jesus."
I read that like it was an advertisement in front of Macy's, this year try DNKY jeans.
Jesus isn't something you "try". If he were a pair of Jeans he would be a size too small and you would feel the instant need to go on a diet and purge things you love out of your life, or he would be two sizes too big, and you would instantly see that you are way too small too fill these pants. So after you "try" on Jesus you would then put him back on the rack for the pretty people.
I promised to be honest, I hate it most of the time. Most of the time I would rather just smile and not let you know that I'm a mess. I would rather not watch you try to fix my mess. But I'm wearing the tight jeans and I'm letting all of junk overflow out of them and I am learning to smile and grin as people look at me with that face of " oh poor girl"
And I'm sure Jesus is smiling.

My Friend Jeremiah

I have amazing friends and and an amazing family. Both love me so well. I am truly blessed. I know that each of my friends and my family members would do whatever they could to take away my pain. They feel helpless and it's hard to talk to them because I do not have a lot of hope to offer. I have made a good friend though, who understands what I am going through. He says things and it's like he's talking about my life. The great thing is he is much older than me and has already walked through this. He offers pure wisdom. My good friend happened to be alive in 7BC, but that doesn't change our relationship. Honestly, if it weren't for the prophet Jeremiah, I would be hopeless and beyond sad.
But there is Jeremiah. I wish we could talk, but instead I get to read his writings and read about him. He was born to a priestly family and had a good childhood until the Lord called him to be a prophet. Jeremiah argued that this was a bad idea because he was young and could not speak correctly. The Lord promised to provide the words. Jeremiah was called to warn the people of Israel and Judah to stop worshipping idols and to return to God. God had made a covenant with the people of Israel and Judah and they had broken it. Jeremiah's fun job was to tell them that they would experience the wrath of God. You can imagine that went over well. He was tortured, imprisoned, laughed at, and shamed and yet he held by his truth even as he suffered for the Lord.
The thing that connects Jeremiah and me is there was this time that he didn't hear from God, and he had to continue being harrassed and threatened with his life and God was quiet. Jeremeiah was desperate. He let his feelings known.
Lamentations 3

1 [a]I am the man who has seen affliction
by the rod of the LORD’s wrath.
2 He has driven me away and made me walk
in darkness rather than light;
3 indeed, he has turned his hand against me
again and again, all day long.

4 He has made my skin and my flesh grow old
and has broken my bones.
5 He has besieged me and surrounded me
with bitterness and hardship.
6 He has made me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.

7 He has walled me in so I cannot escape;
he has weighed me down with chains.
8 Even when I call out or cry for help,
he shuts out my prayer.
9 He has barred my way with blocks of stone;
he has made my paths crooked.

10 Like a bear lying in wait,
like a lion in hiding,
11 he dragged me from the path and mangled me
and left me without help.
12 He drew his bow
and made me the target for his arrows.

13 He pierced my heart
with arrows from his quiver.
14 I became the laughingstock of all my people;
they mock me in song all day long.
15 He has filled me with bitter herbs
and given me gall to drink.

16 He has broken my teeth with gravel;
he has trampled me in the dust.
17 I have been deprived of peace;
I have forgotten what prosperity is.
18 So I say, “My splendor is gone
and all that I had hoped from the LORD.”



My heart aches after every single word. I am living this in every modern way possible. Where I want to end my cry to the Lord here, Jeremiah, somehow sees hope.



19 I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
20 I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
21 Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:

22 Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
23 They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
24 I say to myself, “The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him.”

25 The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him,
to the one who seeks him;
26 it is good to wait quietly
for the salvation of the LORD.
27 It is good for a man to bear the yoke
while he is young.

He is new every morning, and I am holding on to that so tightly.

Oh Jeremiah, you are one of my closest friends and you don't even know me, but you do know me and that is why I am so drawn to you.
Jeremiah chose to follow God when he could not see or hear or even know God was listening to him. He chose to be faithful when God was choosing not to save him from his darkness. God has chosen not to save me from my darkness, and yet I know he is faithful and there is more to this story.
Jeremiah, I thank you for be obedient, grumpy at times, angry and bitter at times, but most important obedient. You are relatable and you are my saving grace.