I reflect tonight on a few friends who have screwed up this week.  Maybe it was a comment that should not have been made.  Maybe it was slipping in to past temptations.  Maybe it was letting emotions get the better of oneself.  The commonality between each friend though is the desire, not to pretend the wrong did not happen, but the desire to make it right.

I am superficial.  That is to say, I have depth, and complexity, but there is such a small chance of me ever wanting to get caught erring.  To be honest, I am nothing like my friends.  I have stretched things, and blame shifted, and pretended things were said a different way – all to try my best to come out looking as perfect as possible.  It is such a failing on my part – God forbid you catch me crying, or yelling at my kids, or having dirty counters.  Don’t stop in on me when I have not had the chance to put on makeup… For me, maybe for you, it is all a coverup.  I am damn sure I am no more perfect than my friends.  But I want you to think so….

God forgive me, one of the traits I admire most – a humble ability to admit weakness and fault, and sin, is something I find myself seriously lacking.  I almost fell off my chair when I received an email last night from a friend who had jokingly given me a nickname that was less than flattering.  She felt terrible, and admitted it.  I had not been in the least offended by the joke; but I was incredibly, deliciously touched by the apology.  I want that sort of conviction and humility.

I know a few “perfect” people.  They have a fantastic list of thou shalts, and thou shalt nots.  They let you know it often enough too. But, I admire their attainment of perfection, or closer-to-perfection than the rest of us have, a WHOLE lot less than I admire my friends that apologize for the “little” things in life.  Than I admire friends who beg for prayer, still screw up, and still seek God’s forgiveness and get back on the horse.  Than I admire friends that call in tears, wondering if they have said the wrong thing.

Our society is so driven on feeling good, that we really do not understand that a healthy dose of guilt and shame and humility is actually a good thing.  I would be far better off for apologizing to you, than I am when I tell myself that what I said really was not that hurtful….

Better to be falling down, and getting back up in humility, than deceiving ourselves into believing we really “aren’t that bad after all.”

In a rare form tonight, I think I may actually make myself vulnerable.

My thoughts this week, given some incredibly intense things going on in my family, have been all over the place.  And as I watch the dust settle, and I see things turning towards a new normal, I wonder at what I am to do with all of the feelings that I have been experiencing.  Because frankly, I haven’t touched them a whole lot in this.

What I reflect on today though, is who I was in Windsor.  I remember a lot of enthusiasm over Brad and I moving there.  And I remember feeling lonely.  It took me years to figure it out, and sometimes life can be just as painful in hindsight as it is during.  Because that is when shame kicks in.

I was not a good friend in Windsor.  Brad knew so many people there.  And with Brad being six years older than me, his friends were older too.  And so were their wives.  I was barely out of high school, had never been away from home more than a couple nights at a time on my own, and was new to marriage.  New to a lot of responsibilities.  Not at all new to insecurity.  I think I made the decision to prove myself.  To speak out of my book knowledge in compensation of my lack of life knowledge.  To be blunt, and upfront (which I still am), but never really toning it down with grace… I still lack grace…

On my wedding day, my Dad informed 120 people that my kindergarten teacher commented on my “ability to organize the other children.”  Some things do not change it appears.  I struggled in Windsor, with not knowing when to be quiet and listen.  I had a strong opinion on everything, and was willing to share it.  Even if it meant telling a mom that she was making her kid fat by comfort feeding her when her child clearly wasn’t hungry, just tired.  Yup, spoken like a true I-don’t-have-kids-but-I-read-this-somewhere kinda girl.  My friend and I have since moved on from this moment, but her ability to confess to me my lack of tact was the best start to this.

I think if I treated my friends in Sarnia the way I treated my friends in Windsor I would be just as lonely here as I was there.  I don’t think girls would be excited to get to know me (maybe they still aren’t? : )  I know I still share my opinion quite readily.  I know my insecurities can still come across as snobby, know-it-all-nish and arrogant.  I know it still sounds like I speak from a lack of experience at times too.  But I have changed.

I do not wish those years in Windsor away.  Nor am I denying that the girls seemed to make a genuine effort there as well.  I think some of them could have been great friends, if I had let down my guard, been myself and been more gentle and quiet in my approach.  I wish I had tried harder to be a friend, and not an opinion.

So now I find myself at a crossroad.  Is the best indicator of future behavior the past?  Can I assume that “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me” is always true?  And, how much am I required to be vulnerable, and willing to be hurt?  I think if my current relationships are to have any hope at longevity, then I have to be willing to accept that even if someone has a pattern, or a predilection towards a certain trait, that there is always, always room that this time they really have changed.  That this time, they have left their Windsor behind.  That this time is a fresh start, and they are ready to begin again.

I have been an absolute grump all (long) weekend.  And it is only as I was marching myself off to bed that I think my self pity really grabbed ahold of me.  I think sometimes the Lord allows us to wallow in it, in order to better see our humanity and sinfulness on the far side of it.

Two acquaintances were at the scenes of terrible trajedies this weekend.  The one witnessed the horror of a three year old being lost at a waterpark – to have been found dead in the three foot kiddy pool.  The other was on hand as a seven year old was hit by a car and killed while crossing the road at a boat race just up the road from my place.

And I find myself, finally, disgusted with my own whining.  As I kiss my sleeping babies on their heads, did I really snap at them for talking too loud?  Did I really lose my temper because they wanted to help vacuum the car, when I just wanted some space?  Did I actually get mad at my husband for enjoying his weekend, when I am less than a month away from having two days a week to myself?  While he works so hard to provide for this family?  Was I really short with my dog, for actually wanting to be with me?  These are my hardships?  Pathetic.

I have a three year old.  I have a soon to be seven year old.  My heart breaks for these families.  Thank God I have lively children to say goodnight to, even if it is over and over again.  Thank God for my many, many blessings that I take for granted.  Each day is a gift from above – may I remember.  And treasure.  And glorify Him for them – in thanksgiving, in a cheerful spirit.  We really do not think often enough about how fragile the gifts in our lives are….

I think, I know we all have those moments.  When we can’t any more.  When we can not handle another day without our mom.  When we can’t spend another day with this temptation.  When we cannot live another moment with chronic back pain.  Or headaches.  When we can’t bear the thought of being let down again, so we can’t open up.  When we can’t put up with a spouse that won’t talk to us.  Or one that only shouts.  When we can’t deal with our weight anymore.  When we can’t handle lonliness anymore…..

I heard a very timely message yesterday.  On James 1:1-4.  About how trials would not be trials if they were not trials.  How God uses and chooses different trials for all of us.  I think we are so very often oblivious to the trials, and private sufferings, and pains of those around us.  My heart today though, feels not trite, but weighty…  As though, as though the idea of you understanding your trial, and your “I can’t” as being from Him, for your own perfection, is that thing you need to know….  But that is hard to say.

I know you can’t.  I know you can’t be a mommy one more day to screaming, or sick kids.  I know you can’t listen to him talk to you like that for another minute.  I know you can’t live without that mommy in your life.  I know you can’t live with his secrets anymore.  Or with hers.  I know you can’t handle another moment of feeling your empty belly.

But He can.  His grace is sufficient for you.  His power is made perfect in your weakness.  I pray, in tears and commiseration, that He blesses you with this knowledge.  That you don’t have to, because He has and He does.  So much of it we will not see redeemed in this life.  But hang on dear friend…

I do not know the whys.  I am not sure we are always meant to.  Job certainly did not when he said “the Lord gives, and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord.”  I want that kind of confidence.  My can’t is not the same as yours.  And, it’s not the same as it will be down the road either….   I just cling to the notion that when I can not anymore, it is because He who began a good work in me, is desiring to be faithful to completion.  On the road of suffering….

I do not envy your can’ts.  I do not think though, we see them quite as we could.  We envision the only suffering that draws us to Him to be either a death of someone close, or a tragedy of somesort, or persecution….   I think the Lord is pleased to use many means to draw us in to further fellowship.

I pray for your heart to be strengthened.  I pray you find peace – even joy!  (James 1:2) in your trials….  I pray tonight that He moves  upon you, and craddles you to Himself, and blesses you with the peace that passes all understanding.  The kind that comes despite, or often, during, our darkest hours….

I have been in a funk now for twenty four hours.  Some of it is because I thought I had a for-sure client, and it did not work out…  I have been busy with a lot of invites already, so I am not concerned, just really disappointed.  Most of my emotion though comes from feeling emotionally tanked.

On the one hand I have a dear friend in a tough situation right now.  Their life is HARD and they are struggling through, and trying really, really hard to fight the good fight.  It is encouraging, and yet exhausting; and it is not even my battle…  I wish sometimes that I had better answers….

On the other hand… Drama.  The kind that really, really should not happen.  The kind where friends say hurtful things ABOUT one another, instead of honest things TO one another.  And then live in the mire of self-destruction.  I find the whole thing painful to watch, because those involved are Christians.  Interestingly, I have been following Piper on Twitter.  And the last two days, his focus has been all about taking the log out of our own eye.  Perhaps, perhaps by even commenting on the situation I have not looked at my own life enough…  But I feel crushed.  I see friends who can not see beyond what they dislike in one another.  Accusations, and resentment.  Spiteful words.  And over what, really?  There are so very many big things in the world, and the world is whittled down to someone’s feelings being hurt.

What if every time we offended God, He said “I’m done.  I can’t do this relationship any more.  You have offended Me, and I have no desire to be with you.”  He has every right.  He is the only one in the universe who has any right to feel that way.  And we TRAMPLE His grace, when instead of receiving His mercy and extending it to those who offend us in minor ways, we allow bitterness to seep in to our souls.  We have no concept of how we are hardening our own hearts towards His forgiveness, when we do not forgive others.  Think of Christ’s parable – the man who was forgiven much, could not forgive someone else.  The parable uses monetary amounts to represent millions of dollars (what we owe God) compared to thousands of dollars owed to us.  Not to say that what is against us is insignificant, but that it pales in comparision to what our debt to Him is.  We will never see the debt against us as small, until we can reflect on it in light of the magnificence of our sin against Him.  Until the weight of my idolatry, and idleness, and crassness and pride and hatred and materialism are measured against His holiness, I can not, and you can not, see the sins commited against us as being anything but large.  But we have no right.

We have no right, to hold against our fellow believer a sin He has already forgiven.  We have no right to consider ourselves better than others.  We have no right to let bitterness and anger rob us of the forgiveness we have received and ought to pass on.

Today has been difficult.  I feel like I already said more than what people were open to hear.  I fear my opinions have been mistaken as judgment…  But they come from my own brokeness, and my own depraved heart – that knows I have held ridiculous things against others for long stretches of time.  I have let really, really stupid things bug me too… and it’s sad.  It makes me want to weep.  It makes me weep.  Will it be worth a friendship?  A sister in the Lord?  And are my own feelings towards those I resent not sin as well?  We feed the cycle….

I hope, I pray, that those who can not let go can see the pain against them as a drop in the ocean compared to the weight of what Christ forgives us for daily.  He has the right to be angry, and He chose forgiveness instead.  We have no such rights – not because we have not been hurt, but because what was done to us is nothing like what we have done to Him.  The more aware we are of how much we are forgiven of, the more able we are to love.  He who is forgiven much, loves much….

My daughter was using one of those electronic reader books yesterday – where you follow along, and someone else besides Mommy reads each page…  I was listening while making invitations, and had to ask her to turn the page back, because I thought I had heard wrong.  Nope.

Her story book on Jonah ends with “Yes, the Ninevites had been wicked.  But they were God’s children, and they deserved to be forgiven.  Jonah understood God’s lesson.  He spent the rest of his days doing God’s work with faith and love.”

My Bible story of Jonah ends with him angry enough about the whole thing that he tells the Lord he wishes he would die.  We don’t know if Jonah truly repents of his arrogance and judgement, or if he dies angry with God.  That’s just a feel-good addition to the Bible.

Worse though, I think, than supposing Jonah ever got it right, is to tell little children that the Ninevites DESERVED to be forgiven.  Fundamentally, this mentality is where so much of Christianity is going astray.  What the Ninevites DESERVED was the judgement and condemnation that Jonah was telling them of.  Even Jonah knew that God was a God willing to give to people what they do not deserve.  ”That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”  God had every right to be angry.  God had every reason to burn the city down, and punish everyone in it for their wickedness.  God does not owe anyone the opportunity to repent.  He does not owe us mercy, or forgiveness – that is why we call it grace.  Forgiveness, and a right standing with God, is not something we deserve.  Wrath and judgment is what we deserve.  To suppose that we deserve forgiveness is to nullify grace, and the free gift of God, that is eternal life (Romans 6:3)

It saddens me.  To teach children that they deserve forgiveness.  Not that they deserve to be held accountable for their sin against a holy God.  May we be willing to teach them truth, that we are so pitifully undeserving of forgiveness, but we serve a gracious, merciful and loving God – willing to give us what we DON’T deserve.

Nine years ago, my dad included that in his wedding speech to me.  With the wisdom of a well-intuned dad, he knew I would struggle.  That is the struggle though, isn’t it?

I watched “Hitched or Ditched” tonight.  Where the couple gets set up by a friend, and they get to basically have a wedding in four days.  Mass pandemonium.  Mixed feelings.  And in the end, the vows included, but ended at “for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health….”  What?  Not even a feigned effort at Forever?  Sad.  Heart breaking really.   As long as we both shall live?  As long as both get out of this what we want?  As long as my needs are being met?

My marriage was at, had been at, a really comfortable point for a really long time.  Safe.  I avoid vulnerability and authenticity like the plague, while virtually demanding it of others.  (ask my friends, they’ll confirm the latter half – I’m not sure they are all aware of the former half ).  I have made it a point of minimizing my own feelings on a given subject, while maximizing conflict avoidance.  Or even uncomfortability on Brad’s part.  While ironically walking around with a cloud of victimization over my head.

We changed that – a couple weeks ago.  When he said I ought to believe in fairy tales and happy endings, because I’m a girl, and I told him I have not believed in that since I was sixteen.  To which he said “It’s time to let go of the past.”  So I did.

It is a choice.  Every day, it’s a choice.  To be honest, and real.  To be happy, or grumpy.  To wake up miserable, and let it eat away at you, or to love your home, your beautiful children, your God that actually says He sings over you.  It’s a choice to forgive.  To remember that every sin commited against you was ultimately commited against God…  It’s a choice to not cry “I have the right to be happy.  be healthy.  voice my opinion.  be where I want to be in life…”  And love is a choice.

We all say it “I love you more today than…”  ”My love today is deeper than…”  ”I know you better know than…”  but this time I mean it.

To all my faithful readers… I’m still here.

Life took an interesting turn, when I started my own business on March seventh – check out www.verityink.com

If I could sum up this last season, besides being busy, it has been spiritually dry. In an effort to get my business up and running, I have managed to neglect a great many things that also matter a great deal to me, like being more available to friends in my life, and blogging. Truth be told, there has not been much to blog about, I have been self absorbed, intentionally, and amazed at the slow fade that stems from there. I have let others know I am taking “time for me” and it honestly is not the best strategy. Thank God for good friends, like S.N. who call up and say “are you okay? really okay? we aren’t connecting spiritually right now, why is that?” A most gentle wake up call.

___________________

I am surprised, ever surprised, at how much people are hurting. And how many different ways they find to deal with it. I am not naive, or sheltered, at least I don’t think so any more, but I wish we were all just a little more aware of how many people are in silent agonies so much of the time.

I hope to be on here more. I suspect the twenty views a day I still get has everything to do with my postings on The Shack (I say suspect, but I know – I see that over 3000 people have clicked on my little blog only to view my Shack quotes). That people would be inclined to see the God of the Bible, more than any man contrived version, is my desire.

So, I started this new book called We Become What We Worship.  Interesting.  And, I was thinking about the introduction, and how I think it fits in with one of my ultimate problems with The Shack. 

It’s a long quote, bear with me.  Beale has this to say though, about what God thinks of us creating an image of Him.

“God had not revealed Himself in any form to Isreal, and to portray Him to any degree in the form of any part of the creation is to misrepresent Him and thus to commit idolatry.  Accordingly, God’s ’self-disclosure came through a revelation in words, and the Sinai experience constituted a paradigm of God’s self-disclosure to Isreal; thus, images were prohibited.’  Images of God were also not allowed in order to maintain a continuing consciousness among God’s people that there is a distinction between the Creator and the finite creation, which ‘cannot even remotely accord with the absolute, transcendental character of the God of Isreal…..  ‘God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.’ (John 4:24)  To worship an image of any part of the creation is to take away from the incomparable glory of God:  ‘I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, nor My praise to graven images’.  (Is 42:8)…

In expounding on the second commandment, Clavin asserts that representing God by images of His creation is forbidden because as soon as people, who are so bound by physical surroundings, imagine a created image in connection to the deity, they are distracted from God’s true spiritual being, and to some degree the deity is conceived of in some corporeal way….  ‘Since God has prescribed to us how He would be worshipped by us [ie., apart from any images whatsoever], whenever we turn away in the very smallest degree from this rule, we make to ourselves other gods, and degrade Him from His right place.’”  -We Become What We Worship, G.K. Beale

Obviously, Christ became man.  And so we have the second member of the Godhead in a form we can understand.  But making an image of the Father?  Is it really okay to pray to a fat black woman named Mama?  Or, as so many who love The Shack contend – God will reveal Himself as we need Him to…  The Scriptural reality though, is that creating any image of God, when He has chosen to not reveal Himself in a specific form, is idolatry. 

I have been thinking lately about what makes “good” good.  The New Testament is full of the talk of rewards in heaven.  Christ talked about them often, about what motivates us to do good works.  And what takes away from the goodness of our actions.  Not to say that we should not make a supper for a friend, or visit someone in the hospital.  And, not even to say that our actions must be entirely altruistic – I have botched things up that way too.  But to ask, what about doing the right thing truly pleases God?

The two areas where I struggle – where my actions are less than they ought to be - are addressed in Scripture; doing them to be noticed for how awesome I am (which I am not), and doing them begrudgingly. 

“Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward.”  Matthew 6:2

“Each one must give as he has made up his mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.”  2 Corinthians 9:7
“Do all things without grumbling or questioning”  Philippians 2:14

I wonder, sometimes, when Christ says “Well done, My good and faithful servant” what that is actually going to look like for me.  I can think of so few moments in my life where I have not either tooted my own horn, subtley or otherwise; or grumbled about helping someone.  And neither honors God.

God wants us to serve Him, and others, out of an overflow of praise, and an ability to see the better in others.  “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.”  Philippians 2:3. 

It is something of a sobering reminder for me today.  I want to delight in my Lord, and to have my actions flow out of the peaceful satisfaction that is His sufficiency for me.  I want to be able to serve others out of knowing that His grace is sufficient for me, that His power is made great in my weakness.  That I can be weak enough for His strength, and goodness to shine through – that He might receive all the glory for the actions of my life.