we need to listen. and shut our mouths.

The other day while driving to my oldest son's baseball game, this story came on the radio.  It's about the producers memories of going on a tour of The National Great Blacks In Wax Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.  She recalls with audible disturbance, the traumatic memory she has from her school tours through the museum which depicts lynchings and a slave ship as well as segregation and slavery.  Its one of the few times everyone in the car was silent.  Three white males in the car 47, 14, and 12. And myself a white woman.  It really hit us all.  My pubescent sons' mouths were gaping and at one point my youngest announced, "This is horrible!  Why would people do that?"  I turned the volume down and asked the boys to imagine that they were born and raised in a country where in recent history white people were segregated, lynched, abused, treated like animals and made to be slaves?  That's the history that my black friends in the U.S. live with.

People like me and my husband and sons we have no idea what that feels like.  That's what "white privilege" means.  It doesn't me we get a hand out or hand up.  It means we don't live with a history of oppression against people who look like us in the country we call home.

I know folks are upset about NFL players taking a knee during the national anthem.  And I know people are quick to defend police officers (so am I... I'm married to one).  But we white folks need to listen.  We need to listen to stories like this.  And to the stories of our black neighbors and co-workers and friends.  We need to listen.  And shut our mouths.  We may have good arguments.  But especially those of us who call ourselves Christians need to put our hands over our mouths and listen.

I have nothing but respect and prayers for our veterans and military servants.  I love my country.  But my country has a history of sinful oppression of people of color.  What we hear in the news and see on T.V. and post in our social media is not going to stop the blood of the slaves from crying out in their descendants. We need to lay down our lives and listen. We need to stop being Job's friends to those who are bearing a bitter burden.  We need to love our black neighbors.  And give our lives for their restoration to wholeness.

This is the way of Christ, our God and Savior who wasn't white.  This is the way of the God who calls peoples of every tribe, tongue and nation to be his children.  This is the way of Jesus, who drove out the proud money-changers and proclaimed, "Is it not written, 'My house shall be a house of prayer for all nations"? And you have turned it into house of robbers!"

 "For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised." -2 For. 5:18-19

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger... -James 1:19 

A Tribute To My Mom

Dear Mom,

I read a post of Facebook the other day where a mom was telling her adult kids what she really wanted for Mother's Day.  In short: Time with them.  I agree.  Being a mom myself I feel the exact same way.  But since we're far apart and don't spend as much time together as we both would like as moms, I wanted to take a minute to tell you, and the world just a few of the reasons I'm so thankful that God made you my mom.

#1  Your songs.

Now that I'm a grown up and have spent years pursuing my own walk with the God of the Bible, I realize there are a lot of messages I swallowed growing up that weren't so Biblical.  Some things taught as truth were just misunderstood.  Some were mis-taught.  Enter grace.  And hymns.  No matter what I learned about God and life that wasn't so right growing up, what I learned right I heard in your singing.  When you sang the words, "I need thee every hour..."  you taught me dependence upon the grace found in Christ.  When you cried out in song around the house, "Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand."  You taught me to cry to God and not pout to myself.  When I heard you worship at bedtime, "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me..."  You taught me to awe at the salvation found in Jesus.  Your singing planted truth in my soul mom.  And now it has sprouted and grown into it's very own tree, planted by the same streams of water out of which my soul sings with you, "And he walks with me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own.  And the joy we share as we tarry there.  None other, has ever known."



#2 Your brokenness

Mom, honestly I used to wish you weren't broken. I used to wish, with you, we had a neat, tidy, healthy family.  I wanted a yellow house with a picket fence, two happy healthy parents and siblings who got along too.  Who doesn't want that?  But brokenness has come upon us all.  Even those I thought had that picture perfect family.  And it's through the brokenness in your life that I have learned to see God's miraculous way of making beauty out of ashes.  I used to be angry with God for the brokenness I saw everywhere and in my own life.  But the beautiful masterpiece God paints by taking the very cracked up thoughts and emotions, bodies and relationships we all live with everyday and out of them painting a whole new Christ-imaging life makes the beauty of that Norman Rockwell life I had in my head look like a 5 year old's water color.  God has painted Christ-exalting majesty and glory out of your broken life mom.  Christ in you is beautiful!  Through you Christ has shown himself to me as the Great Physician who has come not for the well, but the sick, like me.  Through you, he has made me to know him as the great bearer of burdens.  Because you have turned to Him, time and time again, I have learned to see myself and others as broken people in desperate need of the love of Christ.



#3  Your creativity

Paper dolls cut out of any piece of cardboard or paper on hand.  Marbles and Jax.  Stories that should be written down and printed as captivating children's books.  Biscuits to die for.  Your interest in our lives and your creativity and handiwork drew us as children to you.  Your creative, happy, liveliness was Jesus in you causing the little children to come to him.  And he is still at work in you drawing your grandchildren.  God has given you the gift of touching the hearts of young children mom.  Your love of life and interest in investing in the young souls around you has forever changed the course of many lives for God's glory.



#4 Your diversity

In a small town where everyone was a shade of pale and most people spoke red-neck English, you were a wise woman with a world-wide awareness and a vision for honoring the diversity of God's people in every tongue, tribe and nation.  Before we could even speak, you were hanging cut out magazine images of babies with different skin-tones on the wall next to our crib.  When Cabbage-Patch dolls were all the rage, you bought your white, freckle-faced children black Cabbage-Patch dolls.  When people of darker pigment came into our our town and didn't speak much English, you welcomed them into our home and learned to make tortillas from scratch with them.  In a culture that was ignorant to it's xenophobia, you were planting the truth that in God's world there are peoples of all cultures, pigments and languages.  And that's a beautiful thing!


A Woman To Be Praised!

That's only four reasons out of many for why I thank God every day that he made you my mom!  I celebrate you mom.  I want to pass onto my children the gifts you've given me.  Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman like you mom, who is in awe of Christ Jesus our Lord, is worthy to be praised for generations to come!  May God bless the work of your hands mom!

I love you,

Your Lil' Toad

A slow-to-believe believer's thoughts on Good Friday

It's Good Friday.

There's a tsunami of meaning in those three words.

Maybe for you it's just TGIF.

I get it.  Honestly, I grew up hearing the story of Jesus' death and resurrection, but for years it made no connection with my soul.  If I'm honest the celebration (if you can call it that) of Good Friday has been odd to me at best and often it's been an offense.  Tim Keller said something I heard the other day to the effect of, "The cross of Christ is offensive in all sorts of ways, and if you haven't felt it, if you haven't ever struggled with it, I don't think you get it..."  That has been the case with me.  Until recent years, I haven't really stopped to face the ugliness and offense at the center of the Christian message: that Christ was crucified for our sins.

Years of questioning from dear loved ones who don't believe has caused me to look that horrific, bloody, crucified, historic Jesus I love in the face and wrestle with the offense of the Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement (Christ dying in our place for our sins).

I am a believer.  But I understand unbelief.  Unbelievers I love have caused me to examine what it is I say I believe on holidays like Christmas and Easter and Good Friday.  And I'm very glad they have.  I'm a slow-to-believe believer in Christ.  The wonder and horror of what Christ endured and did for me, specifically, and for all who would believe in him, is palpably meaningful to me now more than ever.  But I'm thick-headed and slow to get it.  I'm sure the meaning of Christ's substitutionary death will increasingly become more real for me since it is infinitely full of truth and life.  Increasingly, substitutionary atonement is no longer two big, seminary-graduate words only to be heard from a pulpit.  Substitutionary atonement is the bloody door through which I enter an eternity of grace upon undeserved grace!

But I digress.

I want to try to explain at least a cupful of my thoughts regarding Good Friday as I stand under the Niagra Falls of Christ's substitutionary death for those who believe in him.

There is much to capture in thinking on what it means that Christ died in my place and satisfied the just requirement of God for me so that I will never experience rejection from the God who made me to know him as Father and friend.   As I say, It's like trying to stand under Niagra Falls with a tiny tea cup to grab a drink of water.  But here I go.

It's Offensive Because We're Evil

Good Friday is about how we have perverted the glory of God and how he makes his glory known rightly again.

The thought that people are basically good and if we just modify "bad" behaviors we would all be happy and the world would be a better place is lost on me.  I've had a 2 year old.  I've lied so I could look good to another liar.  I've been abandoned and objectified as a woman.  And I've watched the news and cared for people broken by the evil in others.

We modify "bad" behaviors not because we're basically good, but because like Imagine Dragons said, "No matter what we breed, we still are made of greed."  If we're honest, we know inside us is a drive to make ourselves the center of life at the expense of others.  It's an insidious evil that seems to lie dormant, but peeks out it's ugly head and beats its little brother so it can have the ball, or abandons it's family so it can have a better life... or a thousand other birthed-evils that come out of our hearts.  We have laws, and behavior modification techniques and self-help books, and therapists and jails and multiple forms of restraint and training in our lives because we are trying to tame the beast.  Not because we're all angels at heart that trip up every now and then.

And all the horror that comes out of us is not just horrible because of what we do to each other.  It's horrible because we were not random, chance products of evolutionary process. If that's all we are then there would be no reason to call anything we do right or wrong.  It would be simply part of the process of evolution: survival of the fittest.  But we know we do evil things and we recognize evil in others because we are made to do good.  To be good.  To be godly. To reflect the glory of God in our lives like living testimonies to the universe and each other.  Our human lives are to be like works of art that display the beauty and wonder of the One who made us.  The evil in us is so evil because is a perversion of the image of God in us.

When I look at the cross of Christ and the horrors of his crucifixion and think about the why behind it- Why would God do that to save us?  I realize, at least in part, that the reason the cross of Christ is so offensive and horrific is because billions of people (including me) have perverted the glory of God with our lives and made God out to be a liar and a murderer and a self-centered leech with a message that says, "Your life for mine!"   The cross of Christ is justice.  It's a making right the message that has been wrongly proclaimed from sinful humanity.  The cross of Christ says God is worth my life.  God is truth.  God is just.  God is life.  God gives life.  God's message is, "My life for yours!"  The cross of Christ is a historical entrance of God into humanity saying, "This is what you all have done to me.  This is the bloody truth about the evil that is in you that perverts the truth about who I am and who you are.  I am bloodied and broken and bruised by your evils.  You were made to glorify me, but you have defamed me.  And I bear it because I am God and I give my life for you!"

On the cross Christ is taking the truth that, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" in his own body.  His bloody, broken flesh on that cross is the embodiment of our perversion of God's glory.  He became our sin.

I know that's not all the cross of Christ says.  But it's a few drops.  It's enough to cause me to hate my sin and love my sin-bearing Savior.

All Real Love Is Substitutionary Sacrifice

Good Friday is about what love really is and what only God can do.

In that same talk, where I heard Tim Keller say that if we haven't really struggled with the offense of the cross of Christ we probably don't really get what it means, I also heard him say something that captured a few more drops of the cascades of truth pouring from the side of my pierced and broken Lord.  He said, "All love. All real love is a substitutionary sacrifice. 'My life for yours'. Heart of the universe..."  It's true.  It's a truth we can all recognize.  We all know it when we see substitutionary sacrifice.  When a parent gives up their agenda for the day to tend to a child in need.  When a soldier dies to keep an enemy from taking freedom and life from another.  When a firefighter rushes into a burning building to rescue a trapped man.  All of these and so many other examples speak of the universal truth that real love is "My life for yours. I'll die, I'll sacrifice, I'll serve to make your life better, easier, richer."  Evil is, "Your life for mine.  How can you die, how can you sacrifice, how can you serve to make my life better, easier, richer?"

But even though we see this truth in our lives, none of our little displays of the true message substitutionary sacrificial love can save our fellow man from the righteous judgement of God on the evil we all carry around inside.

There's a line in an ancient Hebrew Psalm in the Bible that says, "Truly no man can ransom another or give to God the price of his life, for the ransom of their life is costly and can never suffice, that he should live on forever and never see the pit." (Psalm 49:7-9)

It's the truth.  We all display little imperfect examples of the universal truth of substitutionary sacrifice, but none of us can be an atoning substitute for another human being.  The only person who could ever pay the costly ransom required to love an evil human being and give them a life that lives forever in friendship and intimate relationship with God is God.  I might die a little so that my son can live more.  But only the God-Man Christ Jesus can die so that my son can live forever!

So there's my little tea cup of truth.  It's just a drop from a fountain that flows abundantly with truth and life.  Christ died bearing the evil I have lived out which has perverted the truth about God.  And Christ did this for me because only he can give God's life for mine so that I might live forever!

Maybe this Good Friday you can sip and taste with me and see that the Jesus who died so horrifically for our sins this day in history about 2000 years ago, he is good.

When your heart is broken on Valentine's Day

It's not that other days with a broken heart aren't painful.  It's just that on Valentine's Day everywhere you look, go or listen pink shiny hearts and candy pour like salt on your wounds.

I've waded my way through the gushing pink day with my own busted up heart many times.  This year I do it again.  If Valentine's day feels like a mockery of your broken heart and a deceitful allure to try and find love in cheap thrills I offer these three rescuers:

1) The Lord whose heart was pierced right through is with you and me.

I don't know what broke your heart.  Maybe it's the death of someone you love.  Maybe it's the betrayal of a dear friend.  Maybe it's a prodigal child.  Maybe it's a divorce or a breakup.  Maybe it's a daily hard keeping of your covenant. Maybe it's the rejection you've endured time and time again.  Whatever pierced you through and is causing your physical body to hurt and reel from the wrongness of what has happened or is happening, Christ has felt it in his body too.

"But he was pierced for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his wounds we are healed." - Isaiah 53:5

Blessed are those who turn to our wounded Savior for healing.  For us, he is enough.  We don't look for healing in chocolates, or wine, or romantic cards, or a dozen perfect thorn-less roses.  Jesus is enough for us.  We hurt, but we know our hurt is not the end of the story.  His brokenness has redeemed ours.  Every weapon formed against us will fail.  Every trap laid, every betrayal, every rejection will only be for our formation into the likeness of the One who saves us.

"no weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed,and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment.This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord." -Isaiah 54:17

2) Only the Heart-Maker can be your heart-healer

The only one able to heal our broken hearts is the one whose heart was pierced for our transgressions.  Our hearts may break because death has inflicted a crushing wound or because betrayal has stabbed and turned in the place where we loved, but Christ's death and his sin-bearing body swallowed the power of sin and death.  Only Christ, the Word made flesh, the Image of the Invisible God, only he can heal what was meant for destruction.  Only he has the power to bind up our wounded hearts and bring real healing.

"The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound..." - Isaiah 61:1

Blessed are those who believe that Christ was not only wounded for our transgressions and has the power and the mission to bind up our broken hearts, but he is also the one who miraculously designed our brokenness that he might bring about our healing and the spreading of his glory in our lives.  He breaks us and heals us to cause us to know him for who he really is- the One who lays down his life for us.  There is a cycle of death and resurrection that spreads life in every way he works with his children.  This is his design.  This is his way.

Come, let us return to the Lord;for he has torn us, that he may heal us;he has struck us down, and he will bind us up.After two days he will revive us;on the third day he will raise us up,that we may live before him.Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord;his going out is sure as the dawn;he will come to us as the showers,as the spring rains that water the earth." - Hosea 6:1-3

3) Your broken heart poured out in love of Jesus is like priceless perfume spreading his aroma everywhere!

Your broken heart is not a waste!  The pain you bear is not for nothing.  Christ has borne our sin in his own body!  He has made us one with him.  He has joined us to God in peace and unbreakable covenant.  When we pour out our bleeding heart on him and see our aching lives as his, for his use, for his purposes, for his glory, for an eternal harvest, our cracked up stories become a broken bottle of priceless perfume spreading the aroma of the worth of Christ to everyone in our lives.  Not everyone will smell him as beautiful, but those who do will be drawn into knowing him too.  As Ann Voskamp says, what some mistake for destruction is really growth.  Our lives become a seed, planted and falling apart in this earth to spring up life-giving life.  And Christ says that is a beautiful thing!

"And while he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he was reclining at table, a woman came with an alabaster flask of ointment of pure nard, very costly, and she broke the flask and poured it over his head. There were some who said to themselves indignantly, "Why was the ointment wasted like that? For this ointment could have been sold for more than three hundred denarii and given to the poor." And they scolded her. But Jesus said, "Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me." - Mark 14:3-6

Blessed are the ones who see their lives in light of God's great story.  Blessed are those who don't say, "YOLO!"  you only live once,  and suck as much life for themselves out of this broken place as they can, but rather they say, "YOLF!" you only live forever, and let their redeemed lives be planted in this world that others might live and know the worth of the One who has loved us to death!

Dear Beloved Brokenheart, you walk the path of ever lasting life.  You walk hand in hand with the author of such a life.  Let every expression of love you see today be a reminder to you that your life is not your own, you are Christ's, and He is yours, and because of him all your pain is for the spreading of the priceless aroma of the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

Love. Suffering. And the Heart-Stream Turner.

(Old pic, boys have grown a lot in a couple years.)

Here it is approaching midnight. I so wanted to sit down and write out some thoughts from today earlier but a neighbor popping in, a child wanting to play cards, a husband not feeling well and soap to be made stood in my way.

So, here I am, printing labels for soap at the very end of this 2nd Sunday in Advent and writing out some thoughts with this very tired brain.  Consider yourself forewarned.

Today's reading was reflecting on love and today at church we heard from 1 Corinthians 6, not an apparent tie here, but there are these two questions:

Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded?

I remember having a Bible study with a lady once who seemed appalled at the thought that you should do something or refrain from doing something because it might cause that person to stumble in their walk with Christ.  I remember the look on her face that said, "That cannot mean that!  That's co-dependency.  I can do whatever I want."  I remember thinking she doesn't get it.  She still thinks Christianity is something you add like a cherry to the top your personally selected sunday life.  She certainly doesn't think Christianity is taking up your cross and following Jesus daily in dying to yourself and bearing with others, even suffering.

That section in 1 Corinthians that asks those two small questions... that's the part that came to mind when I read this evening's Advent reading on love.

Christ suffered wrong and was defrauded along the path to glorify the Father and bring me (and all those who would believe) back into a right relationship with God.

I will suffer wrong and be defrauded in this life as I set out to glorify my Father and point others to Christ.

That's the price of love.  But oh is it worth it!

To the one who holds tightly to all they have to uphold their worth, suffering wrong and being defrauded is to be avoided and must be avenged at all cost.

But to the one who knows all things are theirs in Christ; who knows their worth and identity are found in him, to suffer wrong and be defrauded is a light and momentary affliction on the path of Christ-like love.

Being a Timothy-Mom to two boys in a divided house is hard.  It's been really hard these last 48 hours.  But God amazes me how, "The king's heart is like a stream of water in the hand of the LORD- he turns it wherever he will." I worried.  And I took all those worries and cried and poured out my heart before the only One who can do anything about a 12 year old boy's heart and his tired, unbelieving dad. And He turned that unbelieving heart toward wisdom.  And gave him the right words for his troubled son.  And I stood there in the hall and thanked God for hearing my cries and intervening.

I will trust Him!  There is no one like my God!

Quieted,

Sheila

Tidbits and a spontaneous poem on my longed-for miracle

I watched Contagion last night. Seemed an appropriate way to end a day spent sleeping away some kind of virus that left me so dizzy and head-achy, I couldn't get up for more than 30 minutes.  It was my first night calling in sick at work, something I don't like to do.

Today I have a sinus headache, but feel much better, so, since it's fall break and my boys were gnawing at the bit to go do something fall-break like, I took them to Lake Pleasant. They set out to the lake to catch themselves a fish or two while I set up a couple of chairs under an overgrown desert shrub of some kind and read a good portion of a couple books. After a few hours, they came back with a half dozen craw dad's, a tangled fishing line, no fish and a bruise on one kid's forehead from said rock thrown by said brother. Time to go home.

I read the story of Elijah vs. the prophets of Baal today in my morning reading.  I always come away from that story wishing I could do that.  And then I remember James:

 "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the earth."

And Jesus:

 "But he answered them, "An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah."

And I hang my head and say what He says, "Your motives are evil.  Do you want Me or just my gifts? Do you want to be proven right in front of your enemies or do you want Me to be seen as right in their eyes?"

There is a sign much greater than calling down fire on a water-logged barbecue pit:  Bending down to love another, with understanding, out of a heart that is overflowing in love.

Even more impossible than fire consuming a pit full of water

Is my heart ablaze with agape for another

Utter dependence is exposed

The miraculous is required

I have a need more impossible than heavenly fire

But with God all things are possible

No amount of self-denial will twist His arm

No ritual, no moan, no cry, no religious charm

Only confidence in the power from above

To set ablaze in me the Spirit-soaked fire of His love

 Quieted,

Sheila

Don't grow weary in doing good

I was thinking about this this Labor Day.  Maybe some are growing weary in doing good.  Maybe it's been years of doing hard labor, or daily labor or monotonous labor.  Maybe this Monday is like every other Monday for the past 19 years and all your labor and prayers seem to have changed nothing.

 I was getting down. I was thinking, "Nothing is ever going to change." And I heard that still, small voice saying:  

Do not grow weary of doing good.

It took a few hours. I stewed in faithlessness for awhile. And then it hit me. Like a faithful friend standing by. The truth had been spoken to me. And like fertile soil I let that seed of truth sink in before the lies came and scooped it away. It'll grow. It'll produce good fruit. Just like the good of everyday good things done in obedience to God's spirit willing and moving in me.

Laundry.
Dishes.
Prayers whispered, cried and moaned day after day, month after month, year after year.
Forgoing of vengeance.
The passing on of mercy.
The bending knees giving grace to smaller and weaker.
The standing by quietly even when disagreement is voiced.
The reason for my hope answered in trembling humility.
The preparing of meals.
Working for a wage.
Opening a door.
Giving some time to a needy one.
Giving some treasure to needy one.
Using not minimizing gifts.
A gentle look on the world-weary.
Training children- potty and manners and the way they should go.
Talking of God and His Story to our kids in everyday life.
Sleepless nights to grow another.


What are all those laborous things you can think of that seem to be day in day out and maybe don't seem to be changing anything?  Don't grow weary in doing them Christian.  Christ is in you, moving in you, glad to do all those things for years to come, without ever running out of energy.  He knows the promise and we can believe Him:

...for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. - Galatians 6:9

Our labor is not in vain.  Love never fails. 

Quieted,

Sheila

Just another religious blabbering blogger?

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to write on my 145:4 blog. 

I've been challenged by my own desire to write these things down. Why? Why do I want to write it down so much? Why not just live life and do "normal" things like crochet or something? Why writing... and Bible stories re-told at that?

I guess in part its the gift God gave me. I have a desire to write and I love the Bible. It's a source of inspiration that never runs dry (and much more). Its my world view. But as I'm thinking through what I want to write I'm realizing its not just my re-telling of the Bible stories to my boys. It's me writing out my homologeo. Its me putting to paper the reason for the hope that is in me. Its me penning my explanation of what I believe.

I want it written. I want it out there. I want it recorded.

I know its not going to be complete. Because till I'm perfected seeing my Savior's face I will not know my full homologeo. I will not be able to fully explain the reason I confidently await the coming good of all things being made new- even me! And I also know that if I don't live it out, loving other sinners like me in the name of Christ, it really means nothing.

Oh love through me Love of God!

If I can't suffer long and be kind, it doesn't matter that I can unveil some of the meaning of Your word to my children (or anyone else). If I'm envious of others it doesn't matter that I'm getting a grasp on the mystery of the Trinity. If I'm proud and think I'm all-that it really doesn't matter if I'm self-sacrificially giving to others. If I write my 145:4 and it makes sense and is a good explanation of what I believe and tells Bible stories in a way the points my kids to Christ but I'm rude and selfish, I'm just another religious blabbering blogger.

For Your Name's sake Father, grant me the grace to love as Christ has loved me!

Quieted,

Sheila

Our Epic

I really like epic movies. You know, good battles evil enduring much suffering and even death to overcome and ultimately triumph for the rescue of many. Its a thread of truth which seems to run through so many of our imaginings in movies and books.

In none of these tales do the heroes or heroins set out to suffer for sufferings sake. No, they are guided by a fixed right which is opposed. It isn't as though they set out to prove they are right, they just set out to do right. In the process they are tempted, tried and often tormented physically and or emotionally.

I recently watched Legend of the Guardians. It was right up my alley of enjoyable movies. In the story, Ezylryb, an old, raggedy looking owl in the "good" camp is the legendary character from a once-thought mythical tale told by the the believing main character. Turns out Ezylryb is not a myth. In fact he's so real he's somewhat of a disappointment to the owls who've discovered him. He has this great line in the movie where he points to his scars and mangled feathers and says something like, ...there is nothing glorious in being a warrior; it’s simply doing what’s right, over and over again. Even if it leaves you like this!

I LOVE that line! It reminds me of life as a Christian. Its not that we should set out for persecution and martyrdom... there's nothing glorious in suffering. Rather we are made more than conquerors by letting the love of Christ compel us as His Holy Spirit lives in us to do what is right over and over again. Even if it leaves us scarred and mangled.

I think this is kind of what Paul was saying when he reminded us what really matters as we live following Christ our Hero:

If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever. -1 Corinthians 13:3

Love. Christ-like love is the right we are to set out to do over and over again even if it leaves us bruised and broken.

Christ-like love is not pampering or mushiness or even sentimentalism. Christ-like love sets out to do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with our Almighty Father God. It doesn't set out to make everyone like you. It doesn't set out to even fulfill one's own greatest potential. It lays down its life for others.

We who follow Christ get to live out (by His mercy and grace) the greatest epic our lives could ever play a role in. Our epic is Christ's love.

May we love, over and over, even if in this life it leaves us like a beat-up old owl.

What is important is faith expressing itself in love. -Galatians 5:6

Quieted,

Sheila

I'm writing this down so I don't forget it!

From a teaching my friend gave me on CD from her pastor:

Jesus' life was tough, by any measure. When He was born, His own king wanted to kill Him. When He began His ministry, His family called Him a nut case. His countrymen scoffed at Him. His closest friends ended up denying they even knew Him. He was God in the flesh and yet people called Him a blasphemer. He came to heal the hurting, but was despised by the very people He had helped.

He came to save men from death, but was put to death by the very men He came to save. I mean, when you consider whatever hurts you've gone through in your life; when you struggle with the injustice of having loved well, and yet having received in return being taken advantage of, ridiculed, scoffed, hurt, maybe even down right abused, before you panic, before you run, before you strike out in anger, or recoil in fear, fix your eyes on Jesus...

How do you learn to love like Jesus loved? How do you keep from loosing heart and growing weary in the face of your opposition? Whatever cross you've had to endure. You fix your eyes on Him and not on your hurt.

What will you see when you do that? Well you will see that Jesus, God's only Son, out of obedience to the Father and love for you and me, emptied Himself. He willingly did it. And He became a man in order to save man. But even that gracious act of selflessness, seemed to have gone unrewarded. Cause He was laughed at. Mocked. Ridiculed. Misunderstood. Painfully scorned. And even in those final hours when God the Father could have done something, He didn't... help His Son. Just think of Jesus in the garden praying. A disciple fell asleep. Another became a traitor. A huge mob appears out of nowhere, dragging Him off to Pilate's courtroom... He stood before them naked, His blood mixed with their spit, streaming down His face. And then came Calvary...

You see Him there? Hebrews 12 said, "Picture Him there..." so, so do you see Him there? Hanging from that tree? And here's my point: As you watch Him there, you need to call to mind the deepest disappointment of your life. The greatest hurt that has been perpetrated against you. Whatever the deepest loss you've ever had. Call it to mind. Maybe you staked everything on what you thought was the right thing... the recovery from cancer, the birth of a healthy baby, the renewal of your marriage... But it seems as though everything has turned out wrong. The cancer killed in spite of your prayers. The baby was born with a complication. You got served divorce papers. He went out on you... I'm just sayin' think of Calvary in those terms...

See everybody surrounding the cross that day they wanted a miracle too. Including the women who followed Jesus all the way to the cross. The disciples who huddled in the shadows. Even one of the thieves wanted a miracle. The spectators in the crowd that day shouted, "Come down from cross... and, and, we'll believe you then!" But there was no rescue, there was no miracle. Only a shout of agony that rumbled across the heavens... as Jesus, His body wracked with pain said, "Why have you forsaken Me?!" It seemed in the moment that the Father had turned His back, and that the crowds got their wish. That the religious leaders won the day. And the gravest injustice ever perpetrated in our world, was perpetrated. Cause in that moment everything that was wrong about our world seemed to triumph over the ONLY thing about our world that was good. It seemed such a tragedy in fact, that the Bible says, nature itself convulsed... remember the ground shook like and earthquake. Tombs cracked open. The solar system shuddered. The sun hid. The sky went black in mid day, and yet, please listen to Jesus' response to all that mess, "Father, forgive them. They don't know what they are doing." We're talking more than a slap in the face. More than a stolen t-shirt. Jesus was nailed to a cross, and yet even then His love shone through.

And remember the charges brought against Jesus, unlike the charges brought against you and I, were false....

So show Him your wound. Just make sure you notice His.

Betsy Tenboom was right, "If you want to love like Jesus loved, don't look at your own wounds only, you look to Jesus."

"For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps..." 1 Peter 2:21

Isaiah 51:3

What keeps me where I am?

One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn as a disciple of Christ is that after knowing the freedom granted me in Christ comes a test of willingness to limit what I can do, not by law, but by the love of Christ.

Paul said while he was in a physical prison:

But I want you to know, brethren, that the things which happened to me have actually turned out for the furtherance of the gospel, so that it has become evident to the whole palace guard, and to all the rest, that my chains are in Christ;

- Philippians 1:12-13 NKJV

Paul had very real physical limitations, but he didn't see his physical chains or prison as keeping him from doing God's will. He believed that NOTHING could limit him other than the love of Christ. Only the love of Christ could really constrain Paul to joyfully, prayerfully, and boldly remain in a terrible prison. God had sprung him free before. He knew God could now. But he believed that if there was anything holding him back from traveling the known world to spread the good news of God's salvation in Christ, it was Christ's love for the people right there in that prison, including the "whole palace guard."


God is teaching me that these past 4 years. He's freed me from loveless law that coldly, bitterly, and begrudgingly says , "I have to do this cause I'm a Christian. I have to submit to my husband cause I'm a Christian.... etc." I could have walked a way. He certainly gave me a wide opened door. But His love binds me. The love that went to the cross while I was yet a sinner, and enemy of God, is my chain. I have to stay in the place where He has me ministering His humble, submitted love to my husband, and His nurturing, training love to my children, because how could I do anything else!? His love binds me to them!

( image found here)

The bond of "Poor me I'm stuck in this marriage, with these kids, and I have to stay because it's 'the law'," will hold for awhile. But it'll look for that "legal" way out. It'll look for a way to set itself free. But the bond of the Love of Christ will be compelled to stay united in marriage and pouring its life out for the training and nurturing of its children, and even when there is a "legal" way out, it will not take it. The bond of the love of Christ is unbreakable.


It compelled Paul to see his physical chains as nothing, and it compelled Paul to see his freedom from physical chains in Acts 16 as nothing. Only the love of Christ held Paul firmly to his prison cell, or pulled him "bound" for Jerusalem where chains, beatings and torment awaited him.

Truly I have tasted of the love of Christ. Lord let me not forget and start seeing physical chains, or loopholes out... let Your love constrain me.


Is Christ's love compelling you to stay where you are though you could go? Is Christ's love compelling you to go where you go or are you just thinking, "This is the best option,"?

So glad He found me ,

Isaiah 51:3

Midnight confessions

So many things are coming together for me right now at midnight. And if I truly want to be vulnerable before you (whoever you are) with the hopes that you might trust Christ more, then I must share what's going on with me here right now.

I was supposed to post what I'm learning today, but I guess God waited till the very last hour of today to really hit me with the lesson.

I just shared at Exemplify today about something Jesus said that has been weighing heavy on me. He said,

"And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved." Matt.24:12-13

Just now, after sobbing my way through the movie Fireproof (which I have not seen before tonight) I realized my love has been growing cold for my husband. And it very well may be because "lawlessness" (the refusal to feed on or take as a prescription God's word) abounds in him. Nevertheless I'm the one called to endure to the end LOVING whether the lawlessness abounds or not.

In the movie, Kirk Cameron's screen dad gives him a 40 day Love Dare. After surrendering his life to Christ midway through the 40 days, and enduring the rejection of his wife through the 40 days, and even when it was past, Cameron was finally able to win his screen wife back.

When the movie was over I sobbed to my Lord, "My 40 day Love Dare has lasted 4 years!" My heart was so touched by Christ in that moment. The scripture that flashed on the screen as the movie ended was Romans 5:8,

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

That was the verse God used to fill me with His love for my husband when he was filing for a divorce 4 years ago and I was delivering our second son.

I remember a family member calling to tell me her "concerns" after having heard a rumor about what my husband was out doing while we were just beginning our separation. I was overflowing with something I'd never had for a person before... agape love. I remember defending my husband, who was OBVIOUSLY not very defendable at the time. I remember saying something like, "You know, Christ died for him! He died for all of us while we were still sinners! If He can forgive him, I'm not going to hold it against him!"

My concerned loved one was angry with me and thought I'd lost it. She was right in a sense, I had lost it. I'd lost all my selfish grip and judgement and all I could see was the cross. I couldn't get passed the cross. I couldn't look at the cross and then look at my husband and hold his sin against him. Christ's dare to love me was enabling me to dare to love my husband even while he was rejecting me.

But 4 years have come and gone since then. And because the "love dare" continues without the repsonse from my husband I was hoping for, I've been tempted to give up, or grow cold in my vulnerable love towards him.

After watching Fireproof tonight my heart was rekindled. I saw the cross again and I saw what He wills to do in and through me towards my husband.

I saw Him willing to wait.
I saw Him deserving of my on-fire love towards my husband whether I got a response or not.
I saw Him, arms outstretched wide, crying, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do!" without any promise that we'd turn to Him.

If your tempted to let your love grow cold towards your spouse or towards anyone in your life, maybe like me you need to take a good look at the cross again.

Maybe like me tonight you need to confess that you're growing skeptical and hard.

Maybe like me tonight you need to write your husband a note and leave it on the table.

Maybe like me, the Lord would bring to mind a time in the past when your husband as said something like mine said to me 4 years ago, "I just want to be appreciated Sheila!"

But even if he's never said something like that. Even if he's never done anything that shows you any kind of desire or openness towards your love, Christ HAS! He showed us He loved us by dying for us while we were still rejecting Him!


Oh Father help us! Help us as wives today! Please, give us tender hearts in exchange for the ones that have grown cold and hard. Show us, remind us, how much You've loved us so that we can stretch out our arms wide and be willing to endure to the end with a tender, warm, passionate, vulnerable, love- even if we get no response from our husbands! Help us to entrust our hearts to You! I know Father that the best hope I have of winning my husband is in letting Your sacrificial love be seen in me. Please let it be Lord! Take my life, take it and LOVE through me Love of God! Love through me!!

Redeeming the time