A Little Drummer Epiphany... X-)

Ya know what... I was gonna wait until closer to Christmas to write this, but I figured, "What the heck, why not now?" X-) So I was driving to church, listening to the best radio station ever (http://air1.com/ :-)), on which they periodically play Christmas carols between Thanksgiving and Christmas. As I was driving, I heard a song I've probably heard about a million times over the course of my life, and I'm sure you've heard it just as many times, if not more... "Little Drummer Boy." I can't help it, I gotta admit that in my brain, I was just kinda thinking of it as one of those "typical Christmas carols" that you know all the words to, but you really never pay much attention to what you're singing. You know exactly what I'm talking about, right? I know you do. X-) But this time, there was something different. For some reason, this time, I didn't just listen to it passively as just being another one of those standard Christmas carols that we "have to" hear... I really heard the meaning of it this time. It just really hit me differently, and it was like I finally "got it"... and I found it so amazingly touching that I just have to share it with you now. :-)

Just for a little drummer trivia, "Little Drummer Boy," a.k.a., "Carol of the Drum," was written by Katherine K. Davis, Henry Onorati, and Harry Simeone in 1958, the lyrics of which consist of no less than 21 "rum pum pum pum's"... honestly, the "rum pum pum pum's" always really got on my nerves, which made me pay even less attention to the song, which in turn makes it all the more interesting that it had to be the song I would stop and pay this much extra attention to... X-) Even though you probably know the words, I'll post them here for you... but this time, really stop and pay attention to what's being said, and see if you catch the same things I caught about it. :-)

Come they told me, pa rum pum pum pum
A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum
Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum
To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

So to honor Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
When we come.

Little Baby, pa rum pum pum pum
I am a poor boy too, pa rum pum pum pum
I have no gift to bring, pa rum pum pum pum
That's fit to give the King, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Shall I play for You, pa rum pum pum pum,
On my drum?

Mary nodded, pa rum pum pum pum
The ox and lamb kept time, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my drum for Him, pa rum pum pum pum
I played my best for Him, pa rum pum pum pum,
rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum,

Then He smiled at me, pa rum pum pum pum
Me and my drum.

So here's what gets me... in a good way. ;-) The Scripture the song references is Matthew 2:1-11... go ahead and click on that and you can read it. As usual, you can click on all the Scriptures. :-) The song is about a kid who's invited to go along with the Magi from the east to see Jesus in Jerusalem. The kid doesn't actually appear in the Scriptures, but it uses the scenario in the Scriptures to illustrate a principle... one that Jesus made it a point to stress the importance of all throughout His ministry on earth.

What's going on in the song is this. In the first verse, the Magi tell the kid to come with them because they're bringing their finest gifts to this newborn King they heard about, and that they're bringing these gifs to honor Him. Verse 11 indicates that these gifts were gold, frankincense, and myrrh... the significance of which would be a whole other sermon in itself, but I'll try to actually stick to my original point here. X-) In the second verse, the kid sees the situation Jesus was born into... one similar to his own. If you check out Luke 2:1-7, you'll find the part of the story that tells how Jesus was born in a scrubby little dinky town called Bethlehem, and that on night He was born, He and His family had to sleep in the barn because the inn had no vacant rooms. The kid doesn't have the money or means to bring anything of the world's definition of value. He doesn't even have anything of his own, let alone anything great and grand to bring to honor the King. All he has is a drum, and his ability to play it, so he asks Mary if he can play his drum for Jesus. And Jesus, even though He was just a little 2-year-old baby at the time, appreciates what the kid did for Him, and shows His appreciation by smiling at him.

Think about it... it doesn't say Jesus smiled at the Magi, nor did He do anything to notably react to their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh, but the one gift He shows His appreciation for is the kid playing his drum. What the kid could offer may not have had any monetary value, but it was all he had. What the kid gave may not have appeared to matter much in the world's eyes, but in Jesus' eyes, it mattered the most because it was his all, from his heart.

Later on in His ministry, Jesus famously illustrates this point in the story known as "The Widow's Mite," or "The Widow's Offering," from Mark 12:41-44. When you read this story, the point Jesus was trying to make is that the grandeur of the gift doesn't matter... what matters is that you gave your all, and you gave it from your heart, no matter what it is. The actual quantity of what you give isn't what's important, but rather the relative quantity. In the story of the widow, the people watching were highly impressed with the large, publicly announced offerengs of the wealthy, but the widow who gave two cents, which was all the money she had to her name, was totally overlooked. Jesus, on the other hand, made it a point to publicly recognize this widow's offering of two cents as being far greater than all the offerings of all the wealthy could ever be because she gave all she had, while they did not. In the same way, the kid gave all he had, regardless of how comparatively little it was in the eyes of everyone else. All he had was the talent for playing the drum that God gave him, so in return, he used that talent to give back to God.

God gave different talents and different abilities to all of us. Romans 12:6-8 says that He made us all able to do something, and no matter what it is, we're to do it for Him, for others, and to the best of our ability. Have you ever seen the movie, "Chariots of Fire?" If not, in a nutshell, it's based on a true story about two Olympic sprinters in 1924 who do what they do for different reasons. In the movie, one of these sprinters, Eric Liddell, explained why he runs in one of the best lines I gotta say I've ever heard. He said, "I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast. And when I run I feel His pleasure." Eric took what God made him good at, and did as best he could, and with the intention of doing it to please God. That's just what the kid did. The gift the kid gave to Jesus wasn't anything he created or acquired on his own, but rather it was the kid using what God gave him to give back to God. The kid could play the drum, so he played his best for Jesus. And that's what made Jesus truly happy.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying we shouldn't be giving of our finances... I can give you Scriptures that tell us how and why we should... Proverbs 3:9-10, Malachi 3:10, Leviticus 27:30... and if you're unfamiliar with the tithe, I would recommend a series of teachings called "Honor 10." But what came from this song is taking what God gave to us, and using it to honor Him.

I once wrote on the subject of faith that He doesn't give us what He gives us just so we can say we have it. He gives us what He gives us for a reason, and that reason is to use those things for His glory and His glory alone... and that's what this song really reminded me of. It reminded me that what really matters to God is that I gave my all, I gave it from my heart with the intention of honoring Him with it, and I've used what He blessed me with to bless Him back. It reminded me that this is what's really in God's heart, and that it's in His heart because of His infinite love for us. So next time you hear those nerve-gratingly annoying little "pa rum pum pum pum's" ;-), may they be a reminder to you of who you are in God's eyes, and how much He loves and appreciates all you do for Him, no matter what it is... and inspiration to do all that you do for His honor and glory. :-)

Here... now listen to it with a new ear: http://dai.ly/eEiNnT :-)

Take Me As I Am...

This time I finally see the reason why I can't do this alone. It took some time and concentration to believe it, this I know. I lift my voice to sing out, let the sound of my heart ring out. These hands aren't holding me down. Never again will I be without. I need to build my faith sometimes, but I am so comfortable in line. I'm up, there's no more time to try to mess with this design. Tonight's complete, everyone's asleep, and now I wanna say these words to You. I'll be Your hands, take me as I am, I just wanna be with You. Take me as I am, cuz I'm going. I was too scared to start, now I'm too scared to let go. Take me as I am, cuz I'm growing, but it's so hard to tell when I'm not used to this all.
--"Take Me As I Am," Fm Static

So I told this story to Jeff T. Valley, and he told me it's a story that should be written. And this is me thinking that's a pretty good idea and taking his advice. :-) But now I must add this disclaimer, and you'll see why: This is gonna get just a bit graphic at one point, and some readers may not be happy with me for writing what I'm gonna write, but it's an integral part of the story, so I have to. Hey, hey... don't panic... you'll see what I mean when you get to that part. I'll warn you with bold green text when it's coming, and if you choose to skip over it, I'll show you were to stop and where to pick back up again. Deal? Ok. Anyway...

I'm sure by now that everyone reading this has heard some of my stories from my Guatemala '10 mission trip. So many crazy things happened on this past trip that, in all honesty, never happened before for me... ever. In a nutshell, everything I was too scared/shy/panicked/self-conscious to do on every other mission trip I'd been on, I did it all in Guatemala '10. I knew that's what was gonna happen from the beginning. I knew God was expecting me to face the fears and do what He told me to do last time that I didn't. In fact, on one of those occasions, He just got up in my face and said, "You're not getting out of it this time." And even though my hands were shaking, I was sweating profusely, my voice was wobbly, and I made a mistake that Geraldina (THE best translator ever) had to rescue me from, I still did it, and 47 kids got saved despite my nerves and mistake... X-)

At our last team meeting in the comedor of the Corazones En Accion ranch, when Pastor Tom asked each of us what was the most impacting thing about this trip for us, that was exactly my answer. I was pretty happy with myself (I'm not gonna say "proud of," since I have no reason to be proud... it was ALL God, none of me) for having braved up and done it all this time. Pastor Tom went on to say that even though we'd be going home with all these awesome stories about what happened in Guatemala, the mission trip didn't end when we got on that first plane home... rather it was just beginning. He said the whole idea was to take what we learned there in Guatemala, bring it home, and make it part of our every day lives. Little did I know at that point in time, his words would soon come back to "haunt" me. It would be on the 2nd leg of the flight back home that they would do so. It would be then, before we even left Guatemala, that God would hand me the opportunity on that proverbial silver platter and say, "Here it is... are you gonna take it?"

On mission trip flights, my usual M.O. is to bum window seats from people... hey, I like to take pictures out the window, just look at my Facebook albums, you'll see tons of them :-)... so it's usually just expected that I'm gonna go around asking everyone on the team the same questions: "Do you have a window seat? Do you want it? Can I swap you seats for it?" About 90% of the time, I'm successful... but this particular flight fell into that rare 10% of flights where a window seat became unobtanium. I just could not get a window seat for anything this time. In my endeavor, I discovered that I would be sitting next to Tim, who had become very close friends with Lisa over the course of the trip. While sitting in the waiting area, staring at my ticket, knowing who I was sitting next to, and knowing who would rather be sitting next to him, I suddenly found myself with the really weird, clearly apparent push to trade tickets with Lisa and let her sit next to Tim. There was just this sudden overwhelming desire to do something nice for Lisa that I seemed to have no reason for... so I did. I found myself standing, wandering over to where Lisa was, and saying, "Hey, what seat do you have?" She showed me her ticket and said, "I'm all the way up near the front by myself." I showed her my ticket and I said, "Yeah... I'm sitting next to Tim... um... wanna trade seats? I'm sure you'd much rather sit with him." She smiled widely at me and thanked me for letting her sit next to her buddy. Still not quite knowing what I was doing, I took her ticket, gave her mine, and quietly thought to myself, "Ok... whatever."

As we boarded the plane, I found myself WAY at the front, with no seats in front of me, rather a wall, while the rest of the team was between the middle and the back. I was up there by myself. "Oh well," I thought, "this'll give me a chance to pray or something." It was a middle seat. I hate middle seats unless I'm sitting next to someone I can talk to. This middle seat had me next to a man who didn't speak English in the window seat. As I felt around the sides of the arm rests looking for wherever the tray table may have been hidden... I'd never had this seat on a plane before... I hoped to myself that the person who would occupy this aisle seat would be someone I may be able to strike up a conversation with. After a flight attendant came by, insisting that I stuff my book bag into the overhead compartment, and tried to help me in a nearly unsuccessful attempt to do so, a woman sat down in the seat. She sat there and coyly smiled at me for a few seconds. I looked up at her, just knowing in my heart that "something else" was about to happen, and then it did. She said to me sweetly, "I hate to bother you, but..." I just sat there, blinking at her, waiting for it, cuz I just knew exactly what she was going to ask, and she said, "my husband and I got separated. He's way in the middle there, do you see him there with the bald head and glasses?" She twisted around and pointed out a moustached man about 10 rows back in an aisle seat, head cleanly shaven, with Buddy Holly style spectacles. He smiled and waved. I smiled and waved back. The woman asked me, "Would you mind so much trading seats with him?" I had no reason not to, so I said, "Sure, I'll trade seats with him, that's no problem." She thanked me about 10 times as I wrestled my book bag down from the compartment and traded seats with her husband. Don't think for a minute the adventure ended there. X-)

As I tried to make myself comfortable in my 3rd seat on the plane next to a very tall, very thin man in the middle seat, a girl came walking up. She stood next to me, and said, "Excuse me, I just need to squeeze through here." I looked up at her, and she looked rather "green," if you know what I mean. I could see clearly that she was not feeling good at all. She pointed to the empty window seat, and said, "My seat's over there." I smooshed my legs back into my seat, trying to give her as much space to get past me as she could, but she still had to climb over the tall thin man, since you can only compress legs that long so much. Within minutes, guess what happened again? Yep... the girl looked across the front of the tall thin man and said to me, "Um... I'm not feeling so good... do you think I could sit in that aisle seat in case I have to run to the bathroom?" Blinking at her, thinking, "Dang, I've never had 4 seats on the same plane before... but at least I'm gonna get my window seat," I said, "Sure. That's cool, I'll switch ya." As she stood up and picked up her stuff, the tall thin man made a suggestion that I wasn't quite happy with. He said, "Maybe it would be easier if I just moved over, and then you move over, and she can sit on the end, there." I thought, "Dang it. Just when I thought I was gonna get my window seat... but it's not worth fighting for," and I said, "Yeah... OK... that'll work." He shifted over one seat, I sat in the middle, making this seat #4 for me, and the girl climbed over both of us and took the aisle seat.

OK... this is the part where I'm about to get "graphic," so beware... if you wanna skip this part, scroll down to the similarly colored text and pick up from there...

The girl immediately dropped her stuff in front of her, opened a large, empty plastic bag that had come from some kind of clothing store, leaned over, and just sat there with her head hanging over the bag, just in case. The tall thin man asked her if she was OK, and she explained that she'd caught some kind of bacterial problem in her gastrointestinal system on her trip, and that she was having a hard time keeping food down, and also having another problem you probably don't need me to name here in this blog. The same flight attendant passed by, saw my legs propped up on my book bag, and asked me to please store it in the overhead compartment or under the seat. I said I'd put it under the seat, thank you, and I proceeded to do so. I stuffed it neatly underneath the seat... but... before I could even sit back up all the way from having done so, I lifted my head up, looked up at the girl, just in time for things to get ugly... literally. Just that suddenly, with no warning whatsoever, she looked up and violently puked right against the leather seat back in front of her... it ricocheted, for a lack of a better descriptor, off the seat and directly into my face. I'm not even kidding. She puked in my face. You wanna talk about complete and utter disbelief at what's happening, I was totally in it at that particular moment in time.

Just as quickly, I sat straight up, and then slowly wiped my face with my hand, seeing that I now had puke on my face, in my hair, on my arms, and all over my clothing, and that a little bit had even gotten on the tall thin man. I found myself sitting there, pressed back against my seat, puke all over me, looking at my right forearm... and all I could possibly do was to crack up laughing. I had no clue what to do or think. I quietly said aloud, "Well... never had that happen before," and then began this silent, hysterical laughter, which seemed to be my instinctive reaction. The girl began to apologize profusely, while still slightly gagging, grabbing tissues out of one of her jacket pockets and covering her mouth. I reached up and pushed the button for the flight attendant, who came running over, took one look at the "carnage," and said to the girl, "Oh dear!! Are you OK!?" She said, "Yeah, I'm OK." The flight attendant ran off, and quickly came back with a stack of napkins and wet wipes. All three of us began to take some of the napkins and clean the puke off ourselves. As I sat there, wiping someone else's puke off me, I thought, "Wow... only by the grace of God was I able to not follow suit." Then a hand reached between my seat and hers, holding a bottle of hand sanitizer. The hand was attached to another girl who witnessed it happen, and she said to me, "Here... take a shower with this." I thanked her, and began to rub a good amount of it into my hands and arms, and then a little more into my face. The tall thin man used some on his arms, as did the girl. I thanked the hand sanitizer donor again, and then just sat back and tried to pretend it never happened. Although I couldn't seem to stop laughing. The laugh was the kind that has absolutely no sound whatsoever, but is so hysterical that you can't even move, or even breathe, only sit there with your hand over your mouth, face squinted, red, and wrinkled, eyes tearing up, bouncing slightly, trying to get a little bit of air back into your lungs. Why I would laugh, I have no idea. But I did, just about as violently as she puked. And she just sat there, continuing to hang her head over this large plastic bag, just in case.

OK... the graphic part is over now, if you wanted to skip it, you can start reading again here...

After the plane was in the air... and my silently hysterical laughter had mostly eased up, I sat there thinking, "What a story this is gonna be to tell... who's gonna believe that I didn't make this up?" I looked over at the girl, and she was still sitting in the same position as she had been the whole time... and then all of a sudden, I was totally blind-sided by the spiritual equivalent of a concrete slab to the back of my head. I suddenly became aware of a pressing feeling in my heart... and I suddenly realized that this feeling had been there since this incident occurred, and I just hadn't been paying attention to it. This realization caused an accompanying sinking feeling as I started to understand what I'd been missing this whole time. As I sat there, still looking at the girl, I could see her with my physical eyes, but I could also "see," with my spirit's eyes, the comedor of the Corazones En Accion ranch, us all sitting on the benches in a circle, talking about what impacted us the most about this trip. I could hear the sounds of the plane, the people, the in-flight movie, etc, with my physical ears, but I could also "hear," with my spirit's ears, Pastor Tom telling us how the mission trip didn't end when we got on that first plane home, rather it was just beginning, and that the whole idea was to take what we learned there in Guatemala, bring it home, and make it part of our every day lives. Then I was suddenly, and painfully, reminded of my own words. I "heard" my own self say that I had done everything on this trip that I'd been too freaked out to do on trips past... and that accompanying sinking feeling began to indicate to me that I was about to be wrong. I don't know how else to explain other than to say that I could feel the words, "Not all of it..." and then God took over and just told me straight up...

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Are you gonna pray for her or what?

(suddenly becoming totally dead silent, mouth dropping open like a cartoon character) Good point... yeah, sinking feeling confirmed... I guess I was too busy laughing... and thinking about how this story might make some people laugh when they hear it... and stuff...

I told you that you weren't getting out of anything you backed out of before. You backed out of just walking up to a complete stranger and asking if you could pray for them before.

But I did that... a bunch of times... at all those churches and at the Bible college.

You never did it before because you were afraid they'd judge your words, or that they'd think little or ill of you if you didn't speak just perfectly or pray how you think they expected you to. Those people didn't speak English, and you prayed in English without a translator, so they weren't capable of judging you, so the fear I want you to overcome wasn't there.

Yeah... so then it's not the same?

It's not the same. She speaks English. Now, the possibility exists that she might judge you, which means now, you'll have to overcome that fear to do it.

And then it'll count?

Do it now.

Now!?

Do it now.

But... um... I... uh... I dunno!! Um... I will, I will... I, uh... I will... as soon as the plane lands. Yeah... I'll do it then. That'll work.

Are you really gonna sit there and let her spend the rest of this plane ride miserable because you're afraid that she might be sitting there and thinking judgmentally of you, and you don't feel like dealing with that?

Another good point... You're right... but... um... I dunno...

Why do you think you're sitting here? I swapped your seats just so you could do this.

Oh, You swapped my seat!? Ah... OK... this is all suddenly starting to make sense now. And I think I just lost my last excuse, didn't I?

So do it now.

OK. I'll do it now. Just gimme a second to breathe... and then I'll do it. How am I gonna do it?

You're gonna surrender to Me, and I'll move you. You've done that before, you know how to do that.

OK... (taking a few deep breaths, trying not to be nervous)... here goes...
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I found myself leaning over, putting my head down to where hers was, seeing that she wasn't sleeping or anything of the sort, and asking her, "Are you doing OK?" Startled, she looked up at me and said, "Yeah, I'll be OK, I don't think I have any more left to throw up, so I'll be fine." We both sat up, and I said to her, "I'm sorry about laughing. I didn't mean to make you think I was laughing at you... that's just kinda what I do when I don't know what else to do... that's just kinda my default reaction." She smiled and said, "No, that's OK, I do the same thing. I start laughing in awkward situations like that, too. I understand, it's OK, I know you weren't laughing at me." And then, with my heart pounding, and saying silently to God, "OK, here I go... take me over..." I said to the girl, "Can I pray for you?"

With raised eyebrows, she sat up a little straighter, looked happy to hear that, and she said, "Yeah, sure, OK." She bowed her head, I bowed mine, put my hand on her back, and let God do the talking. Familiar words came back to me as I found myself saying, "Dear Lord, You said in Your word in Matthew that if two of us agree on earth concerning anything we ask, it'll be done for us by our Father in heaven, and You said in Philippians that You'll supply all our needs through Your riches in glory by Christ Jesus, so we lift up this need for her health right now. You said in Isaiah that You already took all of our sicknesses and all of our infirmities when You died on the cross for us, so we ask You to take away this sickness that has no place in her life right now. Whatever this sickness is, we curse it in the name of Jesus, and it has to bow to Your name, so it has to go right now, and we call her healed and whole in the name of Jesus. We thank you, Father, for healing her so that she can go on living the life You called her to, walking out the path You set before her, and carrying out Your will for her life. We thank you for hearing and for answering our prayer, and we pray for Your will to be done in this situation in Jesus name... amen." She looked up at me with a smile and thanked me. And I'll tell you what... you wanna talk about the most ginormous weight off your chest... I could literally feel all that weight and heaviness just lifting and disappearing into oblivion... I did it. And then I knew I could finally breathe easy and say for real this time, "It's all been done." :-) And wouldn't ya know it... God is just so awesome that way... she was healed. He healed her, and by the time that flight landed, she was perfectly fine. :-)

She and I talked for a little while after. I found out her name was Lindsay, she was from Illinois, and that she was saved. She said she had done some State-side missionary work in the past, but she was in Guatemala City on a medical mission. She said she and her team had done some witnessing to the kids they worked with even though it was a secular setting, but she had never done outright missionary work in another country. She turned out to be a really nice girl, and had she not been from so far away, I think we could've made good friends. :-) And at that thought suddenly came the lesson learned. She's saved, which means even if I never see her again on earth, I'll see her in heaven someday. If not here, for sure there, there will be a reunion, where she'll say something to the tune of, "I remember you... I puked in your face..." Then the rest of that sentence will have been determined by whether or not I chose to obey God. My actions and reactions will have determined how she remembered me for all of eternity... and how God chose to reward me for all of eternity.

I could've chosen to be angry, and I could've chosen to express anger, which would leave that sentence ending with, "...and you got mad at me and (insert anger-fueled stupidity here)," leaving her remembering my name for all of eternity as being "the girl who got mad at me for puking in her face." I could've chosen to do nothing, and I could've chosen to just sit there and continue to laugh and try to pretend it never happened, and just left her to be ill, and to go home ill, and end that sentence with, "...and you laughed," leaving her remebering my name for all of eternity as "the missionary who just sat there and laughed about me puking in her face." And I'll tell you what... it left me with THE most amazing feeling in my heart knowing that instead of leaving such a bitter legacy, that sentence will, for all of eternity, end with, "...and you prayed for me, and I was healed," and that she left there with a testimony instead of just a story, and that she'll remember my name for all of eternity as, "the missionary who prayed for God to heal me, and He did." Looking back on it now, I gotta admit... I'm happy that this is how that part of my story will be written in heaven. :-) And I'm happy that instead of succumbing to fear and giving God a reason to correct me, I gave Him another reason to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." :-)

Who would've ever thought that God could take such a situation that seems like it could only ever happen in a sitcom and use it to completely change the entirety of the way you view everything about your life? I wouldn't have... if I hadn't have lived it... I will never look at or think of any of my actions or reactions the same way again. And after reading this, I hope you won't, either. :-)

The Motions...

This might hurt, it's not safe, but I know that I've gotta make a change. I don't care if I break, at least I'll be feeling something. Just OK is not enough, help me fight through the nothingness of life. No regrets, not this time, I'm gonna let my heart defeat my mind. Let Your love make me whole, I think I'm finally feeling something. Just OK is not enough, help me fight through the nothingness of this life. I don't wanna go through the motions. I don't wanna go one more day without Your all consuming passion inside of me. I don't wanna spend my whole life asking, "What if I had given everything instead of going through the motions?" Take me all the way cuz I don't wanna go through the motions. Take me all the way, I know I'm finally feeling something real. I don't wanna go through the motions.
--Matthew West, "The Motions."

This song is my prayer in the middle of this night of sleep I'm giving up to write this... you'll understand why I would do this when you get to the end...

"You place defiled food on my altar. But you ask, 'How have we defiled you?' By saying that the LORD's table is contemptible. When you bring blind animals for sacrifice, is that not wrong? When you sacrifice crippled or diseased animals, is that not wrong? Try offering them to your governor!! Would he be pleased with you? Would he accept you?' says the LORD Almighty."
--Malachi 1:7-8

So reading Malachi 1, I started to wonder how it is that this applies to us nowadays. It's all about God not being happy with His people for offering improper animal and food sacrifices. We don't sacrifice animals or food because Jesus was our perfect Sacrifice, so what are we supposed to learn about God from reading about sacrificing animals? And then I see what He says in Ch.1 v.7-8. That's where attitude becomes clear. These people were instructed specifically about what's an appropriate sacrifice and what isn't, they knew what God wanted and what He didn't, but they stopped caring. They seemed to lose the importance of it and not even realize it. They were so caught up in their lives that they didn't even seem to understand how complacent they'd become about serving God the way He personally asked them to. They were just going through the motions. Just those two verses so perfectly paint this picture, in a way only the Word of God can, of this attitude they had about worshipping God and following His commands. He asked them to give Him their first and their best, which was their most valuable, as a way of placing Him above all else in their lives because that's what He deserves. But their value started to migrate elsewhere. They looked at the sacrifices they were supposed to offer and just kinda said, "Here, we don't need this one, so just use it for a sacrifice. There, that's good enough, now let me get back to my life." He points out in v.8 that they'd never think of offering the governor such imperfection... so why is it OK to offer God, the only Holy, almighty, all-powerful Creator of the heavens and the earth, such imperfection? When did they start caring more about something/someone else than God?

Now I gotta stop and think... if we don't offer animal and food sacrifices, then what does that have to do with us? God does ask us for sacrifices. Think about it. It isn't animals or food He asks us to give Him, but rather our time. This could also be about the tithe, which is a clear commandment through the Old and New Testaments, but I think this is about what God asks of us on a day-to-day basis. He asks us to give Him our time in prayer, praise and worship, study of His Holy Word, and going to church. He asks us to take the best of our time and give it to Him. Do we? Ok, now tell me the truth. How often do we set so many other things before Him in our own hierarchy of life-related importance, thinking they're more "deserving" of our time in our own minds, that we end up giving God what's left of it rather than what's best of it? What have we set before Him as if it's more deserving of our time? Jobs? Classes? Hobbies? People... including your own self? Fill in the blank: "I can't pray/praise and worship/read the Bible/go to church because I have to __________." What do you write in that blank? What if we told our boss, our teacher, our "peeps," that we had no time for them, that something or someone else was more important? Do we immediately worry that they'll get mad at us, reject us, think less of us, punish us in whatever ways they're capable of, like firing, giving a failing grade, not wanting to hang out with us anymore? Do we think of the slim chance of these "consequences" even happening at all as being more foreboding and portentous than living in disobedience to God?

Let me tell you what He said to me about this one night in a Wednesday night church service. As I was listening to Pastor Janet teach about the church of Epehsus in Revelation 2, she said that the problem with them was that they'd lost their first love, which was their love for God above all. She said that the #1 love killer is not spending time with the one you love, so if we love God and we want to keep that love alive, we need to spend time with Him. She said, "It used to be... 'What do you want me to do, Lord? Your will.' But now you're like, 'Uhh... I gotta go do this, and then I'll see you in about a minute, Lord. Let me take care of this first.' He doesn't become the focal point of your life." As she was talking about this, a ridiculous amount of things I'd been focusing on above Him started running wildly through my brain... and then He said to me loud and clear, "That's why you've been by yourself lately. I'll go to drastic measures to get you back because I love you that much. Don't forget you're Mine first before you're theirs." I had to really try hard not to need a Kleenex in the middle of a seemingly random point in the message because just those 3 sentences from God suddenly showed me just how much He really does love me... that He would go so far as to rearrange my life just so that I'd find myself with absolutely nothing else to do but spend time with Him because He missed me... me!!... and that I forgot that, giving up that precious time to so many other things far less important. From there on out, I told myself... rather demanded and commanded myself... that I would fix this.

And I must digress for a minute to tell on myself right now. I gotta confess I just now did something stupid that falls right into this category. While praying earlier, God specifically directed me to Malachi and told me to read it carefully and write what I get out of it... so here I am, studying Malachi and what it's supposed to mean to us today, and I spotted something so stupid on TV, Jimmy Fallon playing a game called "Wheel of Carpet Samples," that I found myself stopping to watch out of sheer morbid curiosity. Now why was that OK for me to do? Why would I think it was OK to set aside the Word of God... especially something specific He asked me to do with it right now... to watch something so pointless and goofy? It wasn't. I shouldn't have done that. I put curiosity ahead of something God specifically instructed me to do. Why was setting something God said to do aside so easy? That's kinda scary.

But as many times as I personally have done all those things, I'm not all bad... ;-) There have also been times when I've done the right thing. I'll tell you about one of them, in fact. A short while ago, there started to be problems at my job... the company was running out of work to pay us for and kept sending us home. It was happening on a weekly basis for about 6 weeks, and losing so much work was causing me some dire financial straits. I wanted to look for a new job. Then one day, a friend told me about a job opening that sounded so perfect... it started at $10/hr with raises to follow, it was a night shift, 40 hours guaranteed, and it was very similar to the job I spent 11 years doing before my current one. I immediately went straight to the office where resumes were to be submitted and gave them mine, and they were willing to hire me!! I was SO happy!! Until I mentioned leaving the country for my 4th mission trip to Guatemala in July, which falls in the middle of the 90 day evaluation. The lady hiring told me she wasn't sure, but she believed they wouldn't keep me if I left in the middle of the 90 days, and that I should get my money back for the trip. She scheduled me for the job training and told me to think about it. So... rather than turning down the mission trip God told me to go on for a job that would've solved my financial problems, I turned down the job that would've solved my financial problems for the mission trip God told me to go on. I put His command above something that was very easy to put too much importance on. And ya know what? Immediately after turning down that job, a company-wide meeting was called at my current job, and they informed us that they'd be moving all of us full-time employees to a salary position... this meant guaranteed 40 hours, guaranteed a certain amount of money per hour/week/month/year, guaranteed raises, guaranteed paid time off, no more sending us home without pay, no more running out of work, and no more short paychecks. And to top that off, He immediately then rescued me from a $300 car repair by sending me someone to fix it for nothing more than the cost of an engine part, $35. God blessed me in a huge way for putting Him first.

So in just this one chapter that on the surface is about not sacrificing blind and/or lame animals or rotten food, I find a message that hits home hard... and very VERY much applies to every single one of us today. The message: Don't forget who He is, what He means to you, and what He should mean to you. Don't give what He deserves to anyone else, no matter who it is, but no matter what, give it to Him... your time, your prayers, your praise and worship. Do what He asks above what anyone else asks and trust Him that He'll make it work for His glory and your good. And He will. :-)

So now here I sit in front of my computer at 3:30am... when I should be sleeping because I have to work in the morning... giving Him, at my own expense, the time He asked for because earlier I gave up time that should've been His to do totally pointless things. From now on, me and my time are His first before anyone or anything else's. :-)

Yours To Hold...

Back by popular demand (or more like a friend's request to read it X-))... this is a re-post of something I wrote over 3 years ago, when I was 27 years old. I'm just gonna say that it's pretty self-explanatory. And looking back at this blog and what was going on in my life as compared to what's going on now, over 3 years later... I'm completely and totally blown away to see what God can do when you give him a busted up, broken down life and let Him have His way with it... the new me is impressed by Him, to say the least, and looking forward to adding this story, when it's finished, to my testimony. :-)

---

March 13, 2007

"I see you standing here, but you're so far away. Starving for your attention, you don't even know my name. You're going through so much, but I know that I could be the one to hold you. I see you walking by, your hair always hiding your face. I wonder why you've been hurting, I wish I had some way to say. You're going through so much, don't you know that I will be the one to hold you? Every single day, I find it hard to say I could be yours alone. You will see someday that all along the way I was yours to hold. I was yours to hold. I'm stretching but you're just out of reach. You should know I'm ready when you're ready for me. And I'm waiting for the right time, for the day I catch your eye, to let you know that I'm yours to hold. I'm stretching but you're just out of reach. I'm ready when you're ready for me."
--Skillet, "Yours To Hold"

Being a 27y/o girl and single, the first time I heard that song, I have to admit... it did make me cry...

This past Wednesday night in church, the topic of discussion was Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. Wait, wait, wait... don't be gettin' nervous and takin' off on me, I have no intention of getting into that subject. ;-) What I did want to get into is what the whole discussion left me thinking afterwards... and no, I'm still not talking about that. ;-) Anyway... I know people don't often read Song of Solomon because they generally think it's only about... that. Well, it isn't. Sure, that's a part of it, but there so much more to it than that. It's about your whole life with that person God meant for you to be with. It's pretty much a how-to guide on spending the rest of your life with that person. It's about attraction, dating, courtship, marriage, conflict, romance, and lifelong commitment... and how to handle all those things the way God wants us to. Pastor Jackie made a good point about it... she said, "God wouldn't create us with a desire for marriage, and all that goes along with it, without giving us instructions on how to handle it the right way." It's all about how it should be when it happens... whenever that may be...

After that service, after hearing Pastor Tom and Pastor Jackie spend half of it talking about spending the rest of your life with that perfect someone God made just for you, I guess I couldn't help feeling a little bit on the lonely side... a little bit on the depressed side about seeing all these people around me, all younger than me, getting engaged and getting married while I'm getting old and still single... and maybe a little frustrated about how I still don't even have a clue about who my guy is. I know he's out there somewhere... I've already been told that... but where is he? When do I get to meet him? Have I already met him, and just don't know it's him yet? I'm getting old... how much older am I going to get before this all happens? I don't wanna be too old for it when it does... when's it my turn?

I suddenly found myself thinking about Ecclesiastes 3:1-8... even if you haven't read it yet, if you've ever heard the song, "Turn Turn Turn" by The Byrds, then you already know what it says...

"To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace." --Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

And then I got told why it was suddenly in my head...

----------------------------------------
This is your season to be single. This is a time when you need to be on your own, when you need to be working on you, and when you need to be learning to depend on only Me. Your time will come, and when it does, I'll let you know, but that time is not now. There are still things you need to deal with, things in your life that need to be worked on, and things I want you to do. These things need to be taken care of before you can move on. Right now, you'll start to depend on him. You'll try to make him fill in the spaces that are still left open. When you come to the place where you can depend on only Me, when you're completed by only Me, when you are made whole by Me, only then can someone else be brought into the picture. Remember what I said to you in the parking lot...

Yeah... I remember...
--------------------

(I'm walking out the door of the store after a long day at work, and a
fellow cashier is walking out with me... the temperature is below 0°F,
the ground is covered in ice and snow, and the wind is painfully
freezing our skin as it whips the loose snow around in the air.)

Wow that's cold!!!!

Where'd you park?

Aaaallllll the way out at the other end of the parking lot by the street.
Where'd you park?

I didn't. My husband is picking me up... oh, there he is. (A car pulls
up to the curb right in front of us, she walks over to it, opens the
door, and looks back at me.) Bye!! See ya tomorrow!! (she gets
into the car, and they drive off, leaving me standing there alone,
watching the car drive away.)

Can't I have one of those? (refering to a husband who actually loves
me and wants to take care of me like that)

Not yet.

How come?

(Pastor Arleen's words are suddenly brought to mind: "It'll come
along when you least expect it, you'll see. I met Bill when I was 27,
and I wasn't even looking." I start trekking across the parking lot in
the bitter cold, and start to talk right out loud.)

Why do people keep saying that to me? People are always telling me
that. Everyone says it. Why would it come along when I least expect
it? Why when I'm not even looking?

Because marriage is about partnership, not dependency. The
dependency needs to be on Me, not on him, and right now, you'll
start depending on him. Depending on each other when you need to
be depending on only Me is the best way to destroy it, and you still
need some work on that, so you don't need to be looking.

If I'm not looking, then how do I know who I can go after?

You're not going to go after anyone.

I'm not?

He's going to go after you.

(that's admittedly a little bit of a foreign concept to me) Really? No
one's ever gone after me before... it's always been me going after
him... it's never been that way before.

So get used to it. You're not going to have to do anything. You're
not going to have to find him. He's going to be the one to find you.

(that just made my heavy heart feel ten tons lighter)

When you're both ready, he'll be along. In the mean time, just focus
on Me. You may be by yourself, but you'll never be alone. I'm
always with you.
--------------------

(an image of one particular guy starts to cross my mind, and I start to wonder if it might just be him)

It's not him. He's not what you prayed for. I heard every one of your prayers about it, and I remember everything you said, whether you do or not. I know how you've changed since you said those prayers, and I know what changes have yet to come, so I know what you're going to want when you've learned what I want for you, and I know exactly who's perfect for you. Although there are a lot of things you prayed for in him, they're not all there. He's not the one.

(wiping some tears off my face, I'm feeling surprisingly relieved to hear that... just kinda letting that sink in for a bit) Ya know, I really thought that if I ever heard that, it would break my heart... but it doesn't. I really thought that would hurt to hear... but now I feel so much better about it. Like I'm glad I don't have to think about it anymore. Thank You so much... that I don't have to wonder anymore...

That's why I told you.

(thinking maybe I just shouldn't read Song of Solomon anymore until he actually does come along so I don't start thinking that way again)

It's OK, you can read it. Learn from it, be encouraged by it, but don't mourn for not having it. You'll get it when it's your time. In the mean time, remember that I'm always here for you. I'll always be here to take care of you, to watch out for you, to cover you, to protect you, to be all around you, to be in you, to be a part of you, and to make you a part of Me... as long as you'd want to stay.

I don't want to ever leave.

Then just rest in the thought that I'm with you, and I always will be.

(wiping some tears off my face again, feeling His presence all around me, and all in me, never wanting it to end) I love You.

I love you.

----------------------------------------
Having that person in our lives, that one He made especially for us, isn't about being fulfilled by them. It isn't about being completed by them. A person can never fulfill you. It's about both people growing ever closer to God together. I've quoted what He said to me last year about that topic many times in the past, but His words will never get old, nor will they ever cease to apply... He told me, "It's not your job to hold onto him. It's your job to hold onto Me, and I'll hold you together." Hearing that made me think back to something I heard a few years ago... on the Sunday morning after that particular October 16th that, if you know me, you know what it's about... a pastor's wife, Sharon, once gave me such a perfect illustration that I still remember to this day, and I always will. She said, "Think of it like a triangle. God is the point at the top, and you and him are the two points at the bottom. As you get closer to God, as the lines between each of you and God get shorter, you'll get closer to each other... that line between the two of you will get shorter, too. But if one of you is getting closer to God while the other one isn't, then the distance between you will get bigger, and you'll start growing apart. You both only need to have an equal desire and be putting out equal effort to get closer to God."

Like Ecclesiastes says, there are seasons that are good, and seasons that are bad, but it's all about how we respond to them. It's all about what we do during them... and our desire to find the meaning of all of it should lead us straight into God's arms because that's exactly where He wants us to be. In our time of searching, we should be searching for Him. Not searching for ourselves, not searching for that "perfect" person, but for Him. We don't need to be thinking that we need anyone other than Him. He loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to die in our place for our sins... isn't that enough? How can we think we need anything more than that? And how can we even think, for even a split second, that a person can do more for us than that?

Thinking that we need anyone other than Him... I personally think that's a blatant insult to Him, and realizing that I'd been thinking that way just shattered my heart into a million little pieces. When it finally did hit me that I'd been thinking that way, I found myself on my knees on the floor, telling Him how infinitely sorry I was for ever presuming to believe I needed anyone but Him, and begging for His forgiveness. Remember TobyMac's song, "Made to Love," if I may quote it for you: "I was made to love You, I was made to find You, I was made just for You, made to adore You. I was made to love, and be loved by You. You were here before me, You were waiting on me, and You said You'd keep me, never would You leave me. I was made to love, and be loved by You." We were made to find Him, to love Him, and be loved by Him. He said He'd keep us, and never leave us, EVER. We were made to be completed by Him. He's the ONLY One that can fill in the missing spaces of us. Not a person. Only Him. And only when we are completed by Him will we be in a place where that person can come along.

This isn't just about me. This is about you, too. If you find yourself in the same place in life as I am, then His words are for you, too. Don't hate being single. Don't let yourself get depressed about being by yourself. Don't start to think that you need to go out and find someone to be happy. Don't forget that He loves you more than you can ever even know, and you'll never be alone because you'll always have Him with you. Talk to Him, and He'll tell you why it's this way. He'll tell you what He wants you to do, and what He wants to do for you, during this time. Don't waste this time grieving for being alone, this is a time to be spent getting ever closer to Him, and letting Him make you the way He wants you to be, the way He knows you'll be happiest. You can't be happy with someone else if you're incomplete, and you can change that right now. Let go of that desire for someone else... at this point, it's nothing less than completely unavailing... and let Him complete you. Let Him be the one to make you whole because only He can. Let Him complete you.

Please... take this advice before it's too late... learn from my mistakes rather than causing yourself the pain of making your own...

You Know...

It's dark in this valley, really, I can't see the sky, spite the trees. I wouldn't fall so easy, maybe, if I would just stay down on my knees. And now I'm alone, really, alone as my eyes can see. I wouldn't feel so alone, maybe, if I would just stay down on my knees. Now I sit with my head in my hands, and I stare at this tear-stained sand. Don't you know man, I heard what you said, but it got lost in the space in my head. So you say that you know, and the harder you try, the lower you go. But you know there's a cure that'll take it away. And you say that you know, you say that you feel, I know in my heart that there is something more real. It's sweet in your mouth but you wont spit it out, so now its going to burn you from the inside out. But you say it's taking the pain away...
--Pivitplex, "You Know"

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith — of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire — may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed." --1 Peter 1:6-7

So this was just so awesome that I had to share it with you. As anyone who could care less about me knows, in these past couple of months, all those things God promised me 2 or so years ago are actually happening. All the stuff He told me He was gonna do, He did. All the stuff He said I was gonna do, I'm starting to do. All the stuff He said He was gonna give me, He gave me. Save one. It just so happens to be the one I wanted the most, while watching everyone around me get this thing I wanted while I still don't have it. Now that's an issue I'll get to in another blog at another time, but for now, I'm just focusing on this issue. This latest rub-in-the-face... let's just say it was acquired by less than honest means... that's all that really needs to be said about it, I suppose... that it was acquired without God's direction or approval. I know it, everyone who saw it actually happen knows it, but anyone looking at it from the outside may not. And I guess that in looking at this latest rub-in-the-face while it's rubbed in my face, I kinda forgot that. I kinda started looking at this ungodly, dishonestly-acquired thing and telling God, "It's not fair. I did the right thing, I'm doing what You told me, I could've taken it dishonestly when I had the chance, but I didn't... so why is it that the ones who blatantly defied You and did exactly the opposite of what You told them are getting what I wanted?" I had barely finished that sentence before He hit me with an answer that totally flipped my brain upside-down. As I explain, I'm sure the parallels will hit you just like they hit me before I even get to an explanation...

An image of that ungodly, dishonestly-acquired thing immediately popped into my head, and He said of it, "That's a cheap imitation. I've got the real thing coming for you."

The next picture was of two fancy gold rings, one on my hand that represented the real thing, and the other sitting on a small round wooden table that represented the cheap imitation. He said, "At first glance, they may look the same..." and at a slight glance, they kinda did. He continued, "...but look closer." I looked at the one on my hand... it was bright, brilliant, perfectly crafted, perfectly colored, flawlessly fashioned, and it was as if the real-ness and the true-ness of it just radiated off it in a way that let you know just by looking that this was real, true, perfect gold. There was no mistaking it. He said of the real thing, "The perfection isn't just at the surface. Cutting into it, you'll clearly see that it's gold all the way through down to the very bottom." The ring started to split open, revealing the inside to be totally solid gold, there was nothing in there but that same pure, perfect gold. "It's the same, inside and out. What you see is what it is. This is real, and there's no denying it, no matter how deep you look." The split closed itself up so tightly that there was absolutely no seam, it went back to being a perfectly smooth, perfectly polished surface, with absolutely no indication that there was ever a split at all. He said, "When splits happen, it's so strong, so pliable yet durable, that it can be repaired as if the split never happened."

Then He pointed out the cheap imitation sitting on the table, and He said of that one, "But this one is only gold on the surface. It's only the color of gold, it's not even real gold." Looking at the cheap imitation more closely, it became more noticeable that it was a different color that the real thing. It was more faded, not as golden, the color nowhere near as bright and brilliant as the real thing, nowhere near as shiny, smooth, or polished as the real thing. Looking even closer, it was clearly visible that the golden color on the outside was starting to chip, scratch, and wear away around the edges, revealing a dark gray material underneath that seemed more like plastic than any kind of metal. He said of the condition of the cheap imitation, "Because it's not real, it won't last. It won't stand up to the wear and tear that the real thing can handle. It'll chip away more and more, making it easier to see from farther away and with less effort that it's not real. Over time, what makes it appear to be gold will fall away, revealing what it truly is. Something of no real value that can't stand up to what it needs to. Something I would never create." Good point. The cheap imitation started to split open the same way, revealing that gray plastic-metal hybrid it was made of just under the surface, and He said about it, "Looking deep into this, you'll quickly see this isn't what it appears to be. You'll quickly see that beneath the surface is something cheap, undesirable, something that wouldn't have otherwise been used for anything if it hadn't been plastered in something else to make it look like it was gold." The split in the cheap imitation began to close up, but with a visible mark in the surface where the split was. He said about it, "Because it's weak, frail, and impure, the splits that happen will always be apparent because it's impurities, weaknesses, and frailties prevent it from ever being repaired all the way."

The next picture was of the real ring from my hand in the middle of a fire. He said, "The fire burns away any impurities in the real thing, and it comes out of the fire soft and moldable, something I can make into anything, into any shape I want it to be." The fire died down, leaving the real ring glowing hot, and He picked it up with His hands and started to reshape it. It was still a ring, but now, after He was done with it, it had been made into a ring more fancy, more elaborate, more intricately designed than it was to begin with. It immediately cooled down, revealing that perfect shine again, and He put it back on my hand. Then He said, "The cheap imitation, when put into the fire, becomes nothing but ashes, useless to make anything, destroyed." Then there was the cheap imitation in the fire, and it quickly burst into flames. The fake gold layer on the outside burned away instantly leaving no trace behind, the plastic-metal hybrid quickly burned away into a pile of ashes as the fire died down, and then wind began to blow over the ashes, blowing them completely away, leaving nothing but a burned mark on the table where the cheap imitation had been sitting.

All it took was watching that illustration, and I got His point. And I think you do, too. So now, I gotta ask me... and maybe you might be asking you, too... when you see someone else get what you wanted, "dishonestly acquired" without God, what reason do I have to be sad? What do I have to envy? What is there about it to want? Cheapness? Fake-ness? A situation God's hands aren't in? All the trouble that comes with it? And having to live with knowing God warned all along, "Don't do it!!" and it was done anyway despite all His warning, so all that trouble is completely deserved? Nah. I'm good. :-)

And I do have to admit... just a few days ago, I saw they who dishonestly acquired what I wanted. They looked at me and waited for me to be sad. But instead, there was peace in looking back at them, remembering the rings and His words, seeing it in a whole new light, and thinking, "Yep. Cheap imitation."

Imperfection...??

You're worth so much, it'll never be enough to see what you have to give, how beautiful you are, yet seem so far from everything you're wanting to be. Tears falling down again, tears falling down. You mean so much that heaven would touch the face of humankind for you. How special you are, revel in your day. You're fearfully and wonderfully made. You're wonderfully made. Tears falling down again, come let the healing begin. You're worth so much, so easily crushed, wanna be like everyone else, no one escapes. Every breath we take, dealing with our own skeletons. You fall to your knees, you beg, you plead, "Can I be somebody else for all the times I hate myself?" Your failures devour your heart in every hour, you're drowning in your imperfection. Won't you believe all the things I see in you? You're not the only one drowning in imperfection.
--Skillet, "Imperfection"

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well."--Psalm 139:14

Well, I know it full now...

Most of my life, I had a hard time believing that I was worth anything. I've been over the story before, so I'm sure you know my situation, you know what the environment was, and you know what I dealt with... and it got me good. In fact, I'll spare you the story for now, but it almost got me dead. But ya know what... it didn't have to. I didn't ever have to believe, even for a minute, that I was worthless if I'd have only remembered what God had to say about it... well, the gears in my head are grinding again...

I think we've all been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. There has to have been at least one point in all of our lives when we believed that we were imperfect, inadequate, useless, lesser, etc. We all have insecurities... we all have weaknesses... and such things are a huge neon target to the devil. Don't even try to tell me you never had any... if you didn't, then you're not human. That's just human nature. That's that sin nature that we're supposed to have let go of when we declared Jesus as our Lord and Savior and let Him take away when we gave our lives over to Him.

I can't help getting a little on the cheeze-bucket side with this line, but hey, it's the truth... God made you the way you are for a reason. He made you with a purpose in mind, and he built you especially to carry out that purpose that only you can... you were custom-made to fulfill the calling He specially placed on you, only you, and no one else in the universe... sitting around hating what and who you are and wanting to be someone else is nothing less than you rejecting the perfect plan and will God set in motion for you from the very first moment of your life... it's no less than accusing God of not knowing what He's doing... so where do we humans get off thinking we know better than Him?

Ya know what, here... let me make an example of myself. Somehow, I have a feeling this is gonna make certain people feel a lot better. I'm gonna tell on one of my issues... I can't talk straight. Regardless of the fact that I speak 3 languages, I have huge issues with speaking. I mispronounce everything in some of the stupidest ways. If you see me in person on any sort of regular basis, you know how I sound. I have a tuba for vocal cords, and my tongue is just tied in so many knots... and I have a tendency to be deathly embarassed of how I sound when I speak. Half the time, when my mouth opens to say something... especially when I know it's important for me to speak coherently... my nerves take over, and the unfortunate recipient of my blabberings ends up giving me a look that makes me wonder if they even realize I'm speaking English. You have no idea how many times I think about taking a Sharpie and writing across my forehead, "I can't talk straight, but you know what I mean," since I end up having to say it so much. The problem is not with my words... as you can see by my extensively written blogs, I have no problem getting words from my brain to you when they're channeled through my hands typing on the keyboard... but when that channel is my mouth, enormous vocal cords, and twisted tongue, whether or not you're gonna hear the intended sentence is anybody's guess.

One quite embarassing example of what my speech-o-phobia gets me into just happened a couple of days ago. I called a friend of mine from the break room at work to ask her a question. I called her on her cell phone. Unfortunately, there was another employee in the break room at the time... there was no other place for me to go, as there were too many ears everywhere else, so I didn't have a choice but to stay there, and try to be as cryptic as I could with the question so as not to blab my business to this other employee. Well, when she answered the phone, I tried... I really wasn't sure how to word it so that this other employee wouldn't know what I was talking about, but my friend would... and as I'm sure you might guess, by my previous description of my speech when it counts, the only thing that came out was a handful of choppy, misplaced syllables with too many spaces in between. Wanna know what my friend said to me? This was so embarassing... she said, "Ya know what, I think my cell phone is cutting out, wait a second... I'm only hearing part of what you're saying... maybe you should call me on my land line so I can hear you better." I know what it sounds like when someone's cell phone is cutting out on the other end of the line, and that's not what I heard... and I had full signal... neither call was cutting out... it was my tongue that was cutting out. I spoke so badly that I actually made her think her call was dropping. That was so completely embarrassing that I could feel my face flushing, then turning red... there was NO way I was about to tell her that it wasn't a loss of signal, but rather a loss of my cohesiveness... so I simply said, "Oh, OK... I'll call you back in a second." As I hung up and dialed her home phone number, I had to sit there and take a few deep breaths to calm my nerves before trying to speak again. How would you like to have that happen to you on a regular basis?

I always hated that about myself. I couldn't stand it that I had to stop and take a few minutes to plan out my words as if I was writing a script in my head every time I needed to speak... and the harder I tried, the harder it was. I wished so much that I could just open my mouth and have such coherent, eloquent words come out like so many of the people I know. It was one of those things that made me feel less than everyone else. I know it, and you know it, that's all the devil needs to hear... that you feel like you're not as good as someone else. That's when he's gonna start whispering in your ear that you really aren't... that you're not worth as much... that you're no good for anything... that you're a loser. That's a gate you don't wanna open because it leads down a slippery slope into destruction. I was always finding myself nit-picking me, comparing the mistakes of my weak points to the accomplishments of others who were strong in those points... and I was finding myself wondering, "Why can't I be like that? Am I supposed to, but I'm just not good enough to? I must not be good enough to. I wish I could be like that... sif." Once again, I was drowning in my imperfections, trying to base my worth on what I'm not... forgetting to consult God about it... so He consulted me...

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You really gotta knock that off.

W... whah?

Looking down on yourself. You need to knock that off.

(barely realizing I'd been doing it... kinda letting that one sink a little) You're right, I should... but it's just... I just... I dunno... (getting lost for words)

You are the way you are for a reason. I made you good at what you're good at for a reason. I have a plan and a purpose for your life, and I made you the way you are so you can fulfill it. Just because you don't have the same strengths as others doesn't mean you're worth any less than they are. They have strengths according to their calling, you have strengths according to yours. To wish you were like someone else is to deny who I made you to be. To wish you were something different is to deny My perfect will for your life. You are not worthless. You are worth My life that I sacrificed for you... so when you believe you're worthless, you're calling My sacrifice for you worthless.

(that just hit me like a concrete slab) Wow. I never thought about it that way before. I would NEVER call You worthless. You're beyond everything to me. You own me. I don't ever even want to exist without You. It hurts to think that I might've done something that would even imply something like that.

Don't forget that My Spirit is in you... your worth comes from My Spirit in you... when you call yourself worthless, you call Me worthless.

(my heart is sinking into my feet...) That's... oh wow... I am SO sorry. I'm so sorry I ever let that thought into my head. I can't even explain how sorry I am. I didn't mean to hurt You. I'm so sorry. Please, Father, please forgive me for letting myself go there. Please help me never to go there again. Don't ever let me do that again. I know You know my heart. You know my heart is to listen to You and never do that again... if I ever start to slip, please stop me.

I forgive you. It's OK. Don't worry about it, but put it behind you, and don't look back. Learn from it, and we'll move on.

I'll do everything I can to never look back. I promise.
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So we have a few flaws... so what? Who doesn't? Though we may not all be the same, we're all alike. We're all humans living in human bodies that are not perfect. We all have problems. But when you hand them over to Him, and give Him control of it, you just watch what happens. My speech? He's working on me to let go of it, stop trying to make it better myself, and let Him handle what gets said... when I find myself having to speak His words, it seriously surprises me how clearly, perfectly, and intelligibly I can say them. Kinda like Moses... "experts" theorize that he may have had a speech impediment... or he might have just been like me... but God used him to confront and talk down the Pharoah, and through Moses' words, God took down the most powerful country on the planet at the time and freed the Hebrew slaves. He used Moses despite his weakness. He's used me and my words despite my weakness. He can use you in your weaknesses as well as in your strengths. You are priceless to Him... precious enough to die for.

What right do we have to deny any of that? What right do we have to say that's not good enough? What right do we have to hate ourselves for what we are and to wish we're something we're not? Just to be with us, He did everything. There's no price He didn't pay. Just to be with us, He gave everything. He gave His life away. He died for us. He conquered death and rose from the grave just so He could be with us. We are worth the very life of the only Holy, Almighty God, the Creator and Ruler of the universe... just as we are...

Still wanna be someone else?

For the Moments I Feel Faint

Am I at the point of no improvement? What of the death I still dwell in? I try to excel, but I feel no movement. Can I be free of this unreleasable sin? I throw up my hands, "Oh, the impossibilities!!" Frustrated and tired, where do I go from here? Now I'm searching for the confidence I've lost so willingly. Overcoming these obstacles is overcoming my fear. I think I can't, I think I can't, But I think You can, I think You can gather my insufficiencies and place them in Your hands. Never underestimate my Jesus. You're telling me that there's no hope, I'm telling you you're wrong. Never underestimate my Jesus. When the world around you crumbles, He will be strong. He will be strong. You will be strong. --Relient K, "For the Moments I Feel Faint"

There seems to be two running themes to my current situation: trust and wait. Those, apparently, are the two roughest things for me because they've been the two things that, when I had to do them in the past, have gotten me the most hurt, the most pain, the most heartbreak, and the most disaster. But the past was without God. This current situation now requires me to do both... but this time, with God. Trusting Him, and waiting on Him. I'm doing my best, I really am. Though I admit I've messed up a few times along the way, He reminds me that He doesn't expect us to never make a mistake, but rather to learn from the mistakes that are made and move on.

I also have to admit that it's been a rather frustrating process. I'm only human, and I've had my moments of thinking that this problem is just too big, that just too much has gone wrong, and that there's no possible way I see that it can ever be repaired. But... it was in one of those moments that He told me some things that really made me look at the situation in a whole new light. It's just remembering to keep looking at it in that light that's gonna take some work.

And apparently there's someone out there... you know who you are... who needs to hear it, too. There's someone who's gonna read this that has a rough situation going on that God is using to teach the same things as He's teaching me with my situation. What He said to me applies to this someone's situation, too. He wants someone to be looking at their situation in this same new light.

So, to this someone who knows exactly who they are, here's what was said... may it shine the same new light on your own situation... and may we both always remember that when He said this, He meant it, so may we never look at our situations in the light of our past ever again, but rather in the light of the promises He gave us of our future...

(You can click those Scripture references. I made them links cuz it's easier that way... read them cuz they're a BIG part of what's being said...)
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Matthew 14:22-33... this is Jesus showing them, "I'm bigger than this storm, and I'm on your side, so trust Me." Looking around at the situation is only going to overwhelm you. The situation looks awful, it looks hopeless, it looks like there's no way out, and it looks like you're going to sink and drown... it may look like it's destroyed beyond repair, and it may look like it's never going to be fixed... but since when have I ever cared about appearances? I'm bigger than this storm, and I'm on your side, so stop looking around and trust Me. Ecclesiastes 3:11... Remember that expression you heard that you like so much, "Soon come?" That means that it'll happen soon, so don't worry. Remember what you heard because it's true. If waiting is hard for you, then you're going to have to wait, otherwise how will you ever learn to do it? 1 Timothy 6:11... James 1:3-4... Wait on Me, and I will come through for you. In the past, what happened in your life taught you that things either happen now, or they don't happen at all. But that's not what I say. Your past taught you that if something didn't happen immediately, if you were made to wait, then there must be some problem with you. I never said that. Your past taught you that waiting meant you wouldn't get what I promised you until you "shaped up," or that you were sinning, or not listening, or doing things wrong. That's a lie. Those are all lies. Waiting has nothing to do with you. Waiting means the perfect time hasn't come yet. Waiting means the situation isn't just right yet. Waiting means I'm building your strength up so you'll be strong enough to handle it when it gets here. Waiting is not about punishment. Your past may have taught you that it is, but I'm telling you it's not. A fighter can't step into a boxing ring without having taken the proper time for training and conditioning... neither can you step into what's coming next without letting Me take the proper time for training and conditioning you. Right now, waiting only means that I want you in top form, in the best shape, while I set the situation right so that everything and everyone will be ready to move on to the next step. Like the fighter, if you step into the ring untrained and not ready, you will fail, with dire consequences. So wait on Me while I make you and the situation ready so that there will be victory.