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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Turn to him the other also.

Don't get me wrong - I thoroughly enjoy my life as a Christian.  "Where else can [I] go? [Jesus has] the words of eternal life..."  I know that this is my source of strength, wisdom, and joy.  But sometimes I don't want to turn the other cheek.  Sometimes I want to lash out.  Sometimes I want to treat others the way they treat me because apparently they don't care about how they want to be treated.  If only the Golden Rule worked that way.  I know that this is no way for the world to go 'round but sometimes I don't want to care.
Today is that day.  Good thing it's Bible study night.

Monday, May 9, 2011

Mondays suck.

The craziness of my Monday actually started yesterday...at 5:30am when I woke up for church.  I had practice at 7:00, church at 8:00, did the worlds worst Jr. Church lesson from 8:30-9:00, then did worship for second service also.  Took a nap from 2:00pm to 3:00pm then went to town.  Returned some stuff then clocked in at BBW at 5:40pm.  I thought I saw the sun rising as I drove home at 1:30am after getting off of work.  LAME.  I woke up at 6:30am and tried to take a shower with my clothes on.  I spent the day, mumbling incoherently as people looked on with bewildered stares.  Upon reaching client #2, I begin filling out my time sheet only to realize that every week since the beginning of this year, I have been shorting myself .25 hours EVERYDAY.  Awesome.  What's going to happen next?  Lord knows I don't want to find out.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Pouring out to be filled up.

Once the mushroom cloud of dust started to settle after the news just a few short weeks ago that we had miscarried, I had a moment.  I was sitting on my couch, drying the tears from my face, and I thought, "Now what?"  So much of my life over the previous 5 weeks had been planning, imagining, and preparing - now what do I do?
My thought process went as follows...
God's Word promises good.
God promises good.
God IS good.
A fruit of His Spirit is goodness.
Therefore, when I start to do good, to use this situation as a means for ministry, that will hasten the arrival of the good I so desperately need and God so richly promises.
And wouldn't you know it, at our Bible study Tuseday, Beth Moore, in the video (she wasn't actually there) said that same thing and based it on a passage in Isaiah 58ish?
Loose paraphrase...
When you spend yourself on behalf of others, THEN your light will rise, etc. and it is followed up by many rich blessings that come from this conditional promise.
Once everyone left I kind of thought, "Cool, I was right."
And maybe this is taking it a few steps too far but then I was really encouraged...it almost felt like God's thoughts were becoming my thoughts.  Not in a channeling way but in an indwelling way.
As the years have gone by (and now a decade) since I made the decision to follow Christ, most of the "big" sins in my life have been eradicated.  Now all that's left are the pesky ones that lurk in dark corners or that I sweep under the rug and sometimes I just don't feel like I'm making any progress.  It's kind of like on the Biggest Loser when in the first 6-8 episodes every one is losing like, 6 pounds a week and then they numbers go down and are less dramatic.  It's still progress but they miss the excitement and obvious accomplishment of bigger numbers on the scale.
But I believe there is work being done.  Even if it's not an instantaneous change or one that any other people would really see or notice, I think I'm still growing and that's exciting because for a long time now, I've felt very...homeostasis-y.
Food for thought.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Suffer not the little children...

Despite my deep, contemplative nature I have not spent a lot of time dwelling on this passage in Scripture. However, this morning has started me baby-stepping down the path of discovery.
While getting ready for the day, I knew a few things:
1. I wanted to wear some of my new jewelry.
2. I had to wear white because I am working both jobs and BBW requires we wear white shirts.
3. It is no, as the tv show says, always sunny in Philadelphia. The sun has forsaken Pennsylvania altogether.
I set off to find an outfit and decided a purple shirt with a white cardigan would be approrpiate to meet all the aforementioned criteria but then I remembered the last time I wore it. I was eating lunch at a friends house and her precious daughter buttoned it all the way up and said, "It looks better like this," and surprisingly, I have since then lacked confidence in my ability to appropriately wear a 3/4 sleeve button up cardigan.
I remember her mother amending her behavior and I wondered why. Was it a socially appropriate thing to be said? Not in that time, place, or manner. But today I realized she was trying to help me...she was speaking truth to me in regard to my fashion, out of love because she didn't want me to look silly. Perhaps this is another way we are to be child-like...not disregarding social etiquette but telling the truth in love.  She wasn't worried about whether or not my feelings would be hurt - why would she?  She was trying to help.  
What would the Church look like, rather what would I look like, if I had so much love inside of me that I wouldn't have to worry about what I said because I knew that it came from a spirit of love, from the Spirit of Christ?  What would I look like if I was more into helping others than "Jesus Juking" (www.annoysthedinosaur.com)?  
How can I change my life, church, community, nation, and world by learning to speak the truth IN LOVE?  I emphasize this because I have no qualms whatsoever about speaking the truth...and sometimes, shameful as it is, I enjoy confrontation.  
Food for thought.

Monday, May 2, 2011

Spiritual Terrorism

When people who don't follow Christ look at my life, even glimpse my life, what do they see?
Today, like so many across the world, my thoughts have been turned to the fact that Osama Bin Laden is dead.  And while my heart has been breaking at the thought of some one so lost and so without Christ, my thoughts have turned inward.  Hang with me here...this may be one of the silliest ideas I've ever had but, whatever...I'm sure down the line I'll say something dumber.
Is it possible that I could be a spiritual terrorist?  Now I understand terrorism to be the means of causing terror...and in most religious sects that participate in terrorism it is to punish those who don't follow what they follow so obviously the metaphor isn't spot on but do my actions, or inactions, cause people to say, "No, that's not right for me?"  Does my attitude beckon people to come to the cross of Christ or does it say, "This whole Christianity this is too hard," or "...too time consuming; look at everything I have to do..."?
Do I shine through?  Does the world see the joy of my salvation?  Do the see the relief I have from the weight of my sin or am I too caught up in a woe-is-me mentality that I frighten them away?
There are a lot of things I'm afraid of and I've got a lot of business going on in my heart and mind in the wake of my own personal tragedy but the fear today that has gripped me more than any other is this:  What if I'm scaring them away?  I have been blessed with two jobs - one I love, the other I don't...at all.  But the majority of the people I work with in both settings are not Christians and I have such an opportunity through my words and actions to show them Jesus but am I?  Do they want to know Christ because they know me?
*Spoiler Alert - I'm about to go off the deep end here*
I just read a book that has some allusions to mythology - namely the Syrens.  For those of you that are unaware, a Syren is one whose song is irresistible.  You hear it and it pulls you in.  There's no escaping it because it gets inside you and you want it.  It's not a force like magnetism - it calls to you.  It beckons you with a song promising you everything you've ever wanted and it's so beautiful, it must be true.  It becomes a part of you and you must be with the maker of such beauty.
* yes, I'm aware that Syrens often lured ships into crashing on the rocky beaches of their islands but that's not what I'm getting at so stick with me *
As stupid as this sounds....as foolish as I feel even typing it...I want to be a syren for salvation.  I want my life to be so changed, so moved, so orchestrated and saturated with Jesus that people can't resist what I have.  That my love for Christ would be infectious.  Radiant.  Extraordinary.  A little bit more like His love for me.

I know, I know...

What the world needs now is love, sweet love? Wrong. The world needs another blogger filling up it's precious cyber-space with thoughts that few agree with and fewer still care about. Ok maybe I was more on target with the love thing but as my mom so rightly says, "Sometimes a girl just needs to share." So I welcome you to the fish bowl.