I have so much on my mind and heart lately. I feel as if I'm not just in a valley, but I'm actually under the mountain. Never before has Matthew 17:20 been quite so poignant. Because God chose me, I have faith. Right now, it is frail and is probably as small as a mustard seed, but Matthew 17:20 says that faith is enough to move the mountain I feel bearing down on me.
This is Holy Week. It is the week we remember that Christ shared His last supper with and said goodbye to His closest friends. He wept and prayed until He bled in the garden. He was betrayed by His friend and falsely accused by His enemies. He was humiliated, beaten and spit upon by those people He came to redeem. He felt the weight of every sin ever committed, past present and future, on His shoulders as He was brutally killed. He was separated from His Father.
Is there any mountain in my life, even a mountain sitting directly upon my chest, that can compare to that? Is there any pain I endure, be it emotional or physical, that Christ didn't endure for me?
But this is Holy Week. It is also the week we remember that the veil between the Father and His children was torn forever. Jesus' follower came forward and asked for His body and laid Him in a family tomb. Jesus defeated the only mountain no human could ever overcome. Women found an empty tomb and leftover burial cloths. Gentile guards witnessed the ultimate power of a sovereign God.
The mountain in my life holds no power over me. How do I move a mountain with a tiny bit of faith? I remember Matthew 17:20. I remember Colossians 1:15-23. I remember Him and His hope....His incredible, beautiful, glorious, faithful, eternal, gracious hope.
There are certain moments in my life when I look around and say to myself (and God), "What the HECK?!!!!"
This week I was once again thinking about all that Jesus has done to get me to the point that I am willing to say YES to whatever God brings my way. For the longest time, I know opportunities were presented, but I chose to say NO...or on a good day, I'd say MAYBE later.
Now, I find myself in this place where I want to say YES to everything...but there's this whole "time-space-continuum" thing holding me back. For each of us there is the good, the better and the best. Figuring out which is which is stinkin' hard!
Right now, in my life, I am the choir booster president for my daughter's class. That's good. I'm the coordinator for a Perspectives class. That's better. But for us, I think the international student ministry we're part of is the best at this point in life.
I'm in this horrible spot of having to choose to give up the good and the better to be fully engaged in the best. This is SO tough!!! I want to do it all.
The good news is, my daughter graduates this year, so giving up choir boosters will be expected and really easy.
Giving up Perspectives is really difficult, though. I just love that class, and I just love the students. But that time-space thing keeps getting in my way. All the time and labor intensive moments of coordinating and planning a Perspectives class happen to hit at the exact same times that new international students are arriving on campus. I can't really be fully involved with the students...going to orientation events, helping them find housing, taking them to Wal-Mart and thrift stores to furnish their new places, hosting their first meals in an American home...when I also have so much Perspectives responsibilities at the same time.
Never once, in all of my Christian life, did it occur to me that saying YES to God would be the easy part, and saying NO to a ministry would be so difficult. MAYBE I need to realize that God is perfectly capable of raising up another servant to say YES to Perspectives, SO I can focus on these students...
Like I've said in the past, there's almost always a song playing in my head. For some reason, this one keeps coming to mind as I try to figure out when to say YES and when to say NO. (hopefully you'll recognize that my mind doesn't always come up with perfectly Godly songs that deal with the issues ideally. Nope, sometimes there's just one line in a song that seems to fit, and my brain goes with it ; )
Yesterday I stopped into a local pawn shop to see what sorts of deals I could find on some items. While I was looking around, I spotted the jewelry display case that was practically overflowing with engagement and wedding rings. How sad. Sitting there amidst the only building in NWA that smells smokier than a single's bar were the pathetic, shiny remnants of failed relationships.
It made me wonder, why are Rick and I still together? We have been through some MAJOR crap, let me tell you. The details don't really matter, but suffice it to say our marriage has taken some pretty major hits. Somehow, our love has grown stronger when others would have called it quits.
In all honesty, it really has more to do with Jesus than anything we've done, but I thought I might try to explain how I feel about this man that I share my life with.
First and foremost, when I met Rick Hall, I knew he was not my type. Oh sure, he's devastatingly handsome, but he had no tattoos, his jacket was not leather, and his vehicle had not only four wheels but four doors as well! Rick Hall was the quintessential yuppie, and I...was not. Still, there was something about him that made me stop and think, "That is a good man." I made the decision to get to know him better, even though there weren't "fireworks" at first. (Trust me, fireworks that take a little more time to set up...those are worth waiting for!)
Each time we've hit a major obstacle in our marital bliss, we've made the decision to look to God for the solution, and to cling to each other for mutual support. Jesus is the only answer, but He gave me this sweet man to walk through this life with. When everything hits the fan, Rick takes my hand while Jesus takes the wheel. I do my very best not to expect anything else.
Probably the very best thing about our marriage is the laughter. This may come as a shock, but sometimes...every so often....the fireworks show is just too stinking exhausting to even think about! Its during those times, when the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, that a good laugh is all it takes to realign the planets and bring balance to the universe again. No one can make me laugh like this quiet man can. After 23 years together, there are a BUNCH of inside jokes, too. When life wears us out, we make the decision to tickle each other's funny bones, instead of the "other" tickling...
I don't know the stories behind each of those rings in that smoky pawn shop, but I do know that the ring on my finger, that's been resized a couple of times, that doesn't get polished all that often, that sometimes sits in the jewelry box so it won't get in the way...that ring is on my finger because every day I make the decision to love my husband, and he decides to love me. Warts and all : )
Recently I helped teach our 16 year old daughter to drive..including how to park. At our house, there are three cars that park side-by-side in a relatively small space. Teaching her how to wedge a car between two other vehicles took patience and lots of backing up, straightening up, and trying again.
Last week, I applied that same concept to my attitude. In my last post, I whined on and on about "my" plans for "my" time and "my" finances. Then, on Thursday night, Todd Ahrend spoke to our Perspectives on the World Christian Movement group about God's mandate for His children. My goal isn't to accomplish my plans for His kingdom. No, my purpose is to be open to HIS plans...whatever those may be.
So, I backed up, straightened up, and I'm trying again. Today, I want to say to God, "Anything, Any time, Anywhere."
In my very finite mind, I think that selling that house will give me the freedom to say that to God. The truth is, I can say it right now, this very moment, regardless of my financial situation.
Maybe its the rain on the roof or the mid-winter doldrums, but I'm feeling a little down-in-the-dumpsy today.
I just finished reading a devotional all about slowing down our lives and noticing the people around us. I'm not sure I can adequately convey how much I want to do that more. More and more I find myself stuck up here in our little apartment working on all the various things I do outside of ISCA, when all I really want to do is have girls over to knit or teach to cook or just hang out. I want to walk up to campus and grab coffee with them. I want to take them to the library or grab a movie or .... whatever! I want to be available.
But I CAN'T, and its killing me.
Every day I pray, "God, there are so many things I want to do for your kingdom with the money we are spending on that big empty house. There is so much I want to do with my time for your kingdom instead of working to pay the bills because we still have that big empty house."
Why is He making me wait? Why can't I do this stuff now? I just want to share His love with my time and finances. Isn't that the right thing? Isn't that what I'm taught in Perspectives? Isn't that what Scripture says to do? I am literally ACHING to give that money away and to spend all my time on Him and His people.
As the moving men carried the dining room table out the front door, I felt a little tug on my heart strings. We bought that dining room set when we moved into our house in Mt. Airy, Maryland...I guess about 15 years ago. Now, we've sold it, and our house sits completely empty waiting for someone to buy it, too.
I really liked that dining room set and have a lot of fun memories associated with it; Thanksgivings with ridiculous amounts of food served up on silver and china; birthday meals and blown out candles as we purposely sing horrifically off-key; graduation open houses and send-offs to the army; Christmas brunches; Mexican train dominoes and Uno marathons; and all the patterns laid out and cut with a sewing machine at one end and a serger at the other. It was a great set of furniture in a great room in a great house.
As I stood looking at the bits of dirt and food and piles of dust and dog hair that had clustered behind the furniture, I got a little misty thinking about everything that was in that house in Mt. Airy. Almost all of it has changed or is now gone. Remembering the "things" in that house eventually gave way to memories of our life during that time. Our lives and all of us have changed so much, too.
At this juncture, I find myself pondering the decisions we made back then, the heartaches we endured. I don't regret them all. I do know that we are all on our own journey. Our green pastures, quiet waters and valleys of darkness are all a little different. Our Shepherd leads us each down the path of His choosing. Today, knowing what I know, having seen what I've seen, having felt what I've felt, I don't make the same choices I did back then....at least not all the time. My sanctification process does seem to be progressing.
Still...in that big, empty, echoing space, I wondered what I will look back on 15 years from now and wish I had done differently. I suppose I'll only really grasp that when I'm 15 years older and I know, see and feel that much more. For now, I will use the experiences and knowledge I have of my Shepherd to help me choose the furnishings of my life, and I'll enjoy or endure the memories I make with the people I am so privileged to love.
In yet another attempt to help me realize that HE really is my only comfort in life and in death...
I went to the doctor because I was falling asleep almost every time I ate white rice or sugar. He checked my blood sugar levels, and despite losing weight, eating no gluten and exercising more, my levels have gone up. I still don't have full fledged diabetes, but its getting there. So, to help stave off the inevitable as long as possible, he started me on metformin. He warned me there would likely be some digestive issues until my body adjusts to the drug. Well, that was the ultimate understatement...kinda like, "holding this stick of dynamite will likely result in some muscular issues to your arm." Why do doctors say stuff like that? Seriously? Its just "pressure," right?
I'm convinced this is payback for that time I made fun of an elderly person I knew that sounded like a nuclear air assault in the lavatory every morning. Has anyone else noticed that everything you laugh at old people for eventually happens to you? I am waiting for that 2 inch chin hair to show up any day now...
The irony of all of this is that I went to the doctor because I wanted to be able to eat sugar without passing out. Well...he definitely helped that. Now, when I eat sugar, I am not sleepy, I'm running like FloJo to the closest little girls room where it takes every ounce of restraint not to scream, "duck and cover" to my poor housemates....nope, definitely NOT sleepy when I eat sugar anymore.
Okay, so why have I put you through this graphic description of my gastrointestinal distress? The truth is, my Father will do ANYTHING to prove to me that HE is all I need. When I'm stressed, I don't need bread or cake or donuts or cookies or Hershey's dark chocolate kisses in the beautiful purple foil wrapper that actually sing the Hallelujah chorus when they melt on my tongue. No! When I am stressed, I need Jesus, His promises, His salvation, His love....Well, I just need HIM.
Sometimes I can take the subtle hint. Sometimes I can read the verse and get the point. Sometimes I need a flamethrower to the intestines. Point made.
