Just Call Me...

Twice recently I was involved in a conversation concerning Christianity.  I guess that should really happen more often if I am doing my “job” but this was more specific than the walking the walk I aspire to daily.  It was more definition style.

I have adopted a new term for myself.  Having grown up Primitive Baptist and now attending Methodist with practically all others in between, I will not use a denominational term.  I prefer the term Christian Hedonist.

John Piper wrote an entire book on this description called Desiring God some 20+ years ago.  I believe he coined the term as a way to describe Christianity that won't conform to a church's specific ideology but tries to mirror that of Jesus and the saints as related in the Bible.  He explains it so well that my attempts seem quite pathetic.  It was published around the time I decided God wouldn’t take someone as unable to carry the burden of regulations as I.  Too bad no one gave me a copy. 

When I realized Jesus died for me and I wanted to live for him, I was filled with an amazing joy.  I was loved that much?  Really?  How could that even be a little bit possible?  I was clumsy, made mistakes, in some ways even considered myself broken.  I saw him holding his arms open to me to envelop me.  He saw past my faults real and perceived, and saw me.

Then I was given the list of dos and don’ts.  A ream of obligations sat on my very young lap.  Added on top of the responsibilities I already had, the very ones I could not quite complete.  I buckled.  I couldn’t dress right let alone follow the rest!  I wanted the love and joy I’d felt not the disapproving looks I received. 

My childhood from many perspectives was quite ideal.  I honestly have no real complaints.  Good parents, involved grandparents, a small town of folks who actually looked out for one another.  Nothing in this world is perfect but it was a mostly wonderful childhood.  I was a very sensitive child.  I have always had the ability to pick up on what others were feeling sometimes before they themselves knew.  I’ve always felt my own emotions passionately.  Outwardly, no one had a clue.  I’ve always played it close to the vest.  Even people who delivered emotional sucker punches would rarely get a hint they’d hurt me.  Only my writings understood how my heart would shatter.

I could only take so much rejection, no matter how subtle, before I was forced to protect myself from the “religion” I had accepted.  God may have been the Creator but apparently he was also an absentee father.  It was more than a dozen years before I realized it was the people and their created rules of propriety that were killing my relationship with my Savior.  Jesus knew my heart.  He knew my wounds.  He only wanted to carry my burdens with me and love me and have me love Him.

I ran away.  I went from one bad choice to another.  Got myself into situations I really couldn’t escape.  In those situations, I learned that the hole in my heart would never be filled by anything on this Earth.  I could numb it.  I could forget it and myself for short periods.  I simply could not live with it.  The temporary fixes were going to end up killing me. 

Music is how I was reached.  I heard songs about relationship not regulations.  Love not lists.  The music and the words reached past the walls I had erected.  I began to read the Bible verses the songs were based upon.  Psalms is packed to explosion with calls to joy.  Joy is not accomplished by those other things.  Even when King David was at death’s door in sorrow, he wrote of the joy he had in God. 

That was it!  That was what I’d felt all that time before!  I was unable to put in to words for anyone who may have asked but I began to actively seek the things that would bring me joy.  Something I’m sure the regulations would have deemed egotistical.  Joy is not something anything on this planet can offer without Christ.  I volunteer at church, not because I am supposed to but because I enjoy it.  I give to charity because it is pleasurable. I ignore the regulations anyone tries to place on me no matter how small.  I wear jeans and t-shirts to church.  The only obligation I have is to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my strength and my neighbor as myself.  Guess what?  That makes me joyful.  I don’t feel weighed down by the command to love others.  I feel freedom and peace.  I find joy in doing what God wants me to do.  I will not allow the regulations to tie boulders to my soul to drag it away from Him.

My pastor has done a series on worship the last few weeks based on Psalm 95, rejoicing (v1-5) leading to reverence (v6-7a) resulting in response (v7b-11).  He said one of the things that seemed to keep coming to mind was that if God’s greatness is the basis of our joy then our joy is the evidence of God’s greatness.  That He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.

I have forgiven those who wronged me although memories can still have the pain attached.  I have managed to mostly forgive myself which can be a much harder, longer process.  The regrets I’d once replayed in my mind wanting a way to change them are becoming lessons to be understood.  I seek joy in all I do because I seek God’s will.  I wish I could claim that I had it down and no longer made the same mistakes.  I still lose focus and end up depressed trying to “fix” my problems on my own.  But understanding that there is a goal and that it is attainable means that I can keep working towards it.  I repent.  I pray.  And, being human, I too often repeat. 

Jesus prayed until sweat poured like drops of blood because he understood what he was supposed to do.  It was not going to be a happy experience.  He had to focus on the joy beyond and cling to it.  The joy of reuniting creation to the Creator through his sacrifice.  Praise God he did or this would all be a moot point.  Sometimes I am not going to be happy go lucky, but that isn’t joy.  If I can retain my focus though, the joy will be there and will be fully experienced.  Jesus is my treasure.  My Savior is my joy. 

May God bless you and keep you until we meet again.

So, How Was Your Day?

So, how was your day?  Mine got a bit interesting.  My mom and aunt would say entertaining.

It started as any other.  I woke up on time.  Got in 5 laps on my walk.  Then did my usual lose-track-of-time thing putting me in a rush to get ready for my husband to pick up our 3 youngest and me.  We were heading to the university bookstore's grand opening.  Our girls want to be cheerleaders for Halloween.  What better costumes than the ones to cheer on the Wolves?

The balloon guy walked up to Princess as we walked past and offered balloons.

I quickly said, "No thank you.  I'm allergic."

He rescinded the balloons and I turned to continue walking.  Before I took two steps he handed 2 bunches of balloons to the 5 year old and the 2 year old.  The two small children that were following behind the big sister and mom.

"Oops.  Didn't realize they were with you."  And the dude vanished, almost literally, into the store.  In his defense, my look may have said murder or at least severe pain.

The two youngest don't really comprehend the allergy issue.  I found out the hard way what reaction I have to latex.  I had to wear gloves day after day and watch as my skin up to my elbows dried, cracked, swelled, and bled on top of the dreadful itching I wouldn’t scratch.  It took nearly four months to heal when I could finally stay away from the stuff. 

Dear hubby caught up and tried to coax the balloons away.  You know daddies and little girls... Gorgeous won with the agreement to release them later.  Even the Princess ended up with a bunch after all.

I spent the next hour, dodging my lovely children as we shopped for the outfits and some things for my upcoming birthday.  Then we walked back to the van where we were supposed to release the pet balloons. 

We had given the Warrior a little too long to ponder this.  "Can we tie them to the outside of the van?"

Hubby and I actually thought that might be a good idea.  The kids would tie them and they would blow away as we drove.  No problem.

We arrived at our business with the balloons still happily bouncing against the van.

We weren't there an hour when I felt a migraine starting.  I didn't have my medicine so I left to go home for it.  On my way, I realized I was clawing my arms.  Argh!  Being inside the bookstore with their balloons, then in our store with them was more than enough to set off a reaction. 

I called dear Daddy and told him I would be taking a shower before I returned and to please have the balloons gone.  He did.  My mother and aunt were laughing out loud as I told them the story.  They love my ingenious children. 

Well, that was my day.  How was yours?

Carousels

We met a homeschool playgroup at a park this week.  The park had an angular momentum carousel.   

Yea, I didn’t know what that was either.  It is like any other kid powered carousel at a park except no one has to push it around.  A child steps up, steps in, and is on his way to Dizzyville.

My husband watched as the children would jump on and one would race around it to get it started or the ones on it would use their feet to push it.  After a while they moved on to another piece of equipment and he chose to inspect it.  Then he called me over.

“This is an angular momentum carousel!” 

I stared at him wondering what the excitement was about.

“Watch.  You don’t have to push it.”

He stepped up on the side.  It remained still.  He quickly stepped into the center and it began to spin.  He stepped back out to the edge and it stopped.  The carousel wanted to spin, it just needed the weight in the center.

I tried it.  Up.  In.  Spin. 

At first I thought I had made a serious mistake.  I was instantly dizzy and soon forced to close my eyes.  As I was praying not to fall, I realized I could shift my weight slightly and affect the speed of the spin.  Leaning out affected the speed.  The chaotic zipping around was controllable.

Life is like that angular momentum carousel.  It wants to spin.  Life wants to be lived fully.  From the outside it looks so chaotic, dizzying, even scary. 

Maybe, you think, maybe standing on the edge is the better choice.

Life gets messy.  Relationships get complicated.  Loved ones leave.  Everything can just seem so hard to handle.

But you can’t stand on the edge.  There’s no movement there.  No life.  No love.  No dizzying moments that take your breath away in awe.  The butterfly soft feeling of the first time you feel an unborn child move.  The first kiss of that special someone.  The sun’s flagrant display of color as it nears the horizon.

Step in.  Your choices are your shifting weight.  Small shifts, big shifts, in between shifts all affect the spin.

Chaos will sometimes seem to overwhelm but remember you can control your choices.  Close your eyes.  Pray.  Shift your weight with deliberate, patient moves.  Look for the moments that make it all worthwhile.

Enjoy the carousel.

Regrets

Regret is a truly toxic substance.  It can rob you of more than just your time wasted in wondering what might have been.  It can rob you of your present.  Mistakes are made.  We're human.  I've looked at my life.  There are choices I've made that people would file under MISTAKE in capital letters.

The first thing that comes to mind is the fact that I eloped at age 18.  Few people would ever consider that a good choice even if the couple remained married for decades. I personally think I was foolish in running off and getting married.  It's one of those things that immature people do without pondering the consequences.  But I can't regret it.

I jumped into a second marriage six months after my first husband's death.  I'm sure there were several bets on how short the union would be.  That was 12+ years ago.  I actually had two separate men I had known for years let me know that they had intended to ask me out after giving me time to mourn.  I could regret not giving myself more time to be single and date.  I don't.  I can't.

The problem with regretting decisions is that you wish you could go back and change them.  If you change a decision, then you change not only the outcome, you change the domino effect of that choice on the things that follow.

If I hadn't married my first husband, how would I have ever located the comic book store where I met my second husband?  Andy and I found the store.  We befriended the clerk.  It was because of that friendship that several weeks after his death I went to the store.  I wanted to let the clerk know about his passing.  While there, I met the owner who I later married.

If I hadn't married my second husband when I did then our first born son would have been too late.  My grandmother, the only grandparent I had left on this earth, died when he was three months old.  Not long after his birth, we had a last family get together.  For just a moment as she held him, my grandmother realized who I was and that the child was mine.  In that sweet, short minute of respite from the theft of Alzheimer's she knew I was happy.  A memory that will forever be etched in my heart.

A time machine that could take me back allowing me to change my past would be a temptation but a waste of gears and bolts.  Even if I look at the small mistakes in my life, they still led me here.  Here is not perfect but it holds all I love.  I'm married to a good husband and father.  I am blessed with five handfuls that keep me on my toes.  There are adventures in life that I missed because of choices I made.  There are adventures I would have missed without those choices. 

The Bible says, "A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps." Proverbs 16:9  I believe in an all powerful, all knowing, omniscient God.  God always knew what mistakes I would make.  He knew where they would take me.  God knows where I am going next.  In retrospect concerning any decision I've ever made, I can see God's hand in it all.  The most horrible mistakes I could ever imagine making at any time in life will lead to the place God wants me.  I may not want to get there the way He sends me.  I may pray for the discernment necessary to never make a misstep.  God teaches us not only in the triumphs of our lives, but in the failures.  Frankly, we tend to listen better when facing the storm.  

Do I have regrets?  No.  Not if you mean to ask if there was something in my past I would change.  I honestly think the cost would be too high.  Does that belief keep me from wondering sometimes?  No.  I do sometimes wonder off in those directions in my mind but then one of the blessings in my home dashes past or needs a mommy kiss to fix a boo-boo.  My regrets will simply stay as lessons hopefully learned.  My life will continue on and I will pray to joyfully follow the path God places in front of me.

I Remember

On Sept 10, 2001 my husband and I signed the mortage paperwork for our first home.  We were so excited we could barely sleep that night. We were just a month away from the arrival of our second son. We finally, officially had our new house.  We'd start moving in the morning.
Instead I got a phone call from my mom that next morning.  "Are you up?  Have you seen the news?"
There was no joke about still being asleep.  The tone was tense. That told me all I needed to know.  Sleep was gone for both of us as we raced to the living room.
The first tower had been hit.  We flipped to different channels, trying to see if any newscast had any information.  Then we saw the second plane.  We watched it hit the second tower.
I remember getting annoyed that reporters kept asking where the president was, where the vice president was.  I wanted to yell at the tv "We're being attacked, you morons!"  Surely I wasn't the only one who'd read enough political fiction and nonfiction to know the job of the secret service was to protect the leaders of our government.  Surely I wasn't the only one who'd read Tom Clancy and knew this was an act of war.
I remember thinking "Dear God, help those people!"
I remember being in tears.
I remember the people falling as they chose suicide over burning.
I remember rocking, cradling my stomach as my not yet born son kicked.
I remember the World Trade Center towers falling.
I remember my 19 month old waking.  Even he was somber.
I remember the Pentagon.  A direct attack on our military leaders to cripple our defense, not just an attack on a base where mostly soldiers would be injured or killed.
I remember the fear of wondering how many more planes had been compromised.  How many more targets were in danger?
I remember Flight 93. My first thought was a prayer that it was the passengers that had taken it down.  Heroes willing to die to protect others. I was afraid the air force may have had to shoot it down.  The guilt a pilot would have felt...I can't imagine.
I remember President Bush promising to find those responsible for the cowardly acts of that morning.  I had many disagreements with his policies over his 8 year tenure but that morning he was the leader America needed.
I still pray for the families that had loved ones murdered that morning.
I will never forget that morning.
I remember Sept 11th 2001.