When the Heart Hears

Today, I want to share something personal.

I want to give you my before and after.

No, I'm not talking about pictures of me before I began exercising and healthy eating...
(please feel free to sigh in relief!)

...I'm talking about how I was before--in my heart.

Before I was...

FULL OF MYSELF.

I was full of anxiety.

I hated.

I felt hated by others.

I was consumed with hiding my imperfections from others.

Life felt like I was moving from one argument to the next.

There was a great absence of peace in my heart.

I laughed, but it was often AT other people.

I lied.

I cheated.

I gave no concern for others, unless there was some kind of payback in it for ME.

BUT THEN.

My life turned on a dime.

I was walking in one direction and spun around to walk in the opposite.

The day stands out in my mind.

I was 15.

What you might ask, would change someone's life so drastically in their teen years that she would never walk away? That her life would go from so enthralled with HERSELF to enthralled with her CREATOR?

Simple.

It was Jesus. Jesus on the Cross.

That night when I was 15, I saw Jesus on the cross. He was being nailed to it. Each nail was named...and for some reason, each nail was something I personally was guilty of. The soldiers nailed that sinless God-man to the wood and held up each nail first proclaiming, "Hatred!" 

Then the banging of that sin through the flesh of Jesus.

Then the next nail was held up and proclaimed, "Lying!"

Bang. Bang. Bang.

My tears began to flow.

For the first time in my life, after years of my parents taking me to church with them, I began to see something I never had:

Jesus died on the cross for ME.

It was my actual sin that nailed Him there.

And He didn't deserve it.

I DID.
I distinctly remember my SHOCK.

THAT'S WHAT IT MEANS??? I was truly incredulous.

"JESUS DIED ON THE CROSS FOR MY SINS!!"

I had heard that my entire life, but never with my heart.

The heart must hear.

When the heart hears, the heart melts.

My life changed then.

He began a long process of taking me from where I was and changing me into someone He dreamed of.

Romans 8:29 declares that dream:
"For God knew His people in advance, and He chose them to be like His Son, so that His Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters."

God's dream is to make us like Jesus.

And He does that work. Not us.

The beautiful (and so mysterious) gift of His Holy Spirit does that work in us.

I am here to say: it is real.

My life looks NOTHING like it would have had my heart not heard.

I was not about to look like Jesus before!

Here is the Bible's description of love:

Patient. Kind. Not jealous or boastful. Not proud. Not rude. Does not demand her own way. Not irritable. Keeps no record of being wronged. She does not rejoice about injustice but rather when truth wins out. She never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful and endures every circumstance.

And the character of Jesus that the Holy Spirit creates in me daily:

Loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self controlled.

Let me say it folks, THAT is NOT POSSIBLE without GOD!!!!

So, you must be wondering, am I claiming perfection?

Hahahahahahahahahaha!!!! You make me laugh my head off silly!!!

Oh no. 

Sadly, no.

I still lose my patience with my children.

I still catch myself hoping you think I look good...or have done something well.

I am still tempted by old sins. Satan does that you know. He knows where we are weak and loves to hit those old spots.

But God is IN me. (Yeah, that's really weird. And totally wonderful.)

And with God in me, I am controlled by another power. It is not of my own. I don't have to sin. I am FREE.

Free to love.

Free to have joy!

Free to give my life over to whatever God dreams for me!

And friends, that is one AFTER picture that is glorious!

And as I am learning...that picture may surprise even us! Who knows the mind of God? He plans things for us that may surprise (and delight!) us. Those plans have been in place even BEFORE He created the sunshine.

(wow.)

Those plans the Bible calls "good, pleasing and perfect."

I am LOVING the after.

Soon, I'm going to be sharing some "after" pictures of my life that I never saw coming.

And you might join me in the amazement.

:)

"That is what the Scriptures say, "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him." ~ I Corinthians 2:9

How to Clean a Sippy Cup...and Never Be the Same Again!

Source

The other day I rather mindlessly asked Darrah Kate to put her sippy cup into the dishwasher.

I thought nothing of it, didn't check to see if she would do it. (Life moves fast around here!) And I did not remember this small request.

Fast forward 20 hours.

It was after the morning rush to get the children on the bus...I had returned with the two littles and was beginning to put away the "fall out" from the morning.

There it sat. That same sippy cup. Sealed. Along with the other items that our "I'm-too-short-to-put-it-away-properly" child had stacked along the counter for me to put away into the cupboard. The very sippy cup I'd asked DQ to take to the dishwasher.

It was clean.

On the outside.

But...

...on the inside it had yesterday's milk.

(Are you "ewwwwing" yet???)

And as I opened up that sippy cup, I thought about our lives.

How often are we like that cup?

Do we wash our outside, making sure we appear clean but truly, inwardly we are carrying around sour milk?

How careful are we to keep up appearances? To clean our house for company? To only put make-up on for the days we have somewhere to go? To name drop around people who "matter?" To talk in ways that show off our intelligence, or hide our emotions from the outside world?

Mm-hmmm.

But what about the INSIDE OF OUR CUPS???

What about the person who thinks that because they attend church or read the Bible that they are "clean?"

What REALLY makes us clean on the inside, anyway?

Can we know for SURE?
Can we possibly DO ENOUGH to be truly clean?

Good news! The answers are YES and NO, respectively.

Yes, we CAN know for certain that we are clean on the inside!
                                     and
No, we cannot possibly do enough to be truly clean.

Huh?

It's the message that changed my life.

I am a dirty sippy cup with rotten milk inside. I have done all I can to try and clean up, but no matter how many times I go through the dishwasher cycle, I still reek of my rottenness. It's called "sin."

I am helpless. Oh, I can put on a pretty good show, for sure. But I know deep down that my insides are rotten. They are NOT clean. And I cannot seem to purify myself for the life of me!

But there is one who CAN. His name? You've heard it before: Jesus. He has come to earth, lived a sinless life, died for me on the cross (my very sins/rotten milk are the reason He died!) and then absolutely conquered death by rising from the dead! That act: His death and resurrection bought my freedom! You see, it was my rightful place--that death. My rotten milk/sin's punishment is death and total separation from God forever.

But the beauty is this: He didn't wait for me to run my life through the dishwasher before He died for me. He did it while I still was covered in the sticky fingerprints on the outside too!

"When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners." (Romans 5:6)

You see, if I were a glorious looking and sweet smelling sippy cup, someone might dare to die for me. But read this:

"God showed His great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." (Romans 5:8)

Wow! Serious GOOD NEWS!!!!

There is no good you can do to earn God's favor. He sees right through the walls and insulation of your sippy cup.

HE KNOWS WHAT IS INSIDE YOU. 

                                ...AND HE LOVES YOU!!!

See, He doesn't love because of WHAT you have inside (or how pretty/clean you are on the outside!)

He loves you because He made you. That alone gives you VALUE. Plus, He sees the potential you have. The potential to reach your BEST for Him.

You matter.

You.

He wants you. He loves you. He wants to clean you once and for all. No more dishwasher cycles, no more attempts to earn "points" for your good behavior.

He wants to overwhelm you with His love. He longs to set you free from keeping up appearances.

What does it cost?

It's free.

That's hard to take in, isn't it?

But do not be fooled, following Jesus is free, but it will cost you everything.

Huh?

That's right.

It is a free gift, but one which will so change you that it will cost you what you used to be. That free  LOVE will overwhelm you and clean and will begin to work inside of you.

You will no longer want the things you used to want.

You will begin to want what HE wants.

Your friends may not understand, your priorities will change and you will begin to live each of your days with great purpose, meaning and joy.

You will give up things that have recently mattered. But you will discover that these are not truly sacrifices at all...they are a joy to lay down to know this new, deep, pure love!

You will RADIATE WITH TRUE JOY!!!!

My prayer is that this day will not pass before you allow Christ to wash you clean and make you HIS VERY OWN.

How?

*Understand that you are a sinner. That ugly, stinky, rotten milk is yours. Own it. Then confess it. That's just a fancy word for "tell God about it." But don't worry, He already knows. You won't pull any big surprises.

*Understand that the death of Jesus was for YOU. For your stinkin' sippy cup. It was indeed for other people's as well, but this is personal. Jesus loves YOU. And His sacrifice was made with YOU YOU YOU in mind.

*Tell Him that you want that sacrifice to be for you. Ask Him to come and clean you out. Sit quietly. Wait for it. He will come with His Spirit and do that very work. It's a tummy-flipping amazing experience for some people! It's a quiet new belief for others.

*Tell someone important in your life what you've just done. You could say, "Dude! My sippy cup is CLEAN!" (well, that may not translate very well, but if you tell that to ME, I'll get ya!) ;) Be sure to tell a trusted friend or someone who also walks with Jesus about your experience. Don't keep it to yourself. You need to share your happy news!

*Get busy living your new life. Learn all you can. Study a book in the Bible. I suggest John or Philippians to begin. Find a church nearby that worships the God of the Bible. Seek out a new friend. Pray. Talk to God like He's sitting right there with you--that's a new truth in your life: HE IS!!!

*Share this news with the people you care about! Even ones you have never met. The truth is that your life is brief on this planet and you've got something worth SHARING WITH EVERYONE!

You Cannot Change the World with a Click

Surprise, surprise! You cannot change the world with a click of the "Share" button on Facebook.

But oh, we'd love that wouldn't we?

We could sit back on our comfy sofas, think about ourselves and our needs, have a heart for 30 minutes for the world and click "Share" and feel GOOD that we've done our part in saving the world and then go back to our self indulgence.

Although we would LIKE that, it isn't like that. And for good reason. Wow. Imagine how much MORE full of ourselves we would become! Already our country is at a dangerous state of comfort, self indulgence and ethnocentrism.


Let me let you in on what has been brewing in my mind since last night.

As I watched a very well made movie by a talented man about Joseph Kony, it hit on a very tender nerve for me: suffering children. I looked at several things before I posted and gave my social support, but I certainly did not look into the sponsoring group's method of handling donations. And as time has given my brain time to percolate, I've considered that maybe I don't want to help make an evil man famous. The end goal of the video Kony 2012 is to raise awareness in the US so that our leadership will send/maintain troops in Africa to help find Kony. At first glance this seems great. But I've begun to wonder, is this the BEST way? I am not doubting our militia/intelligence, I'm just wondering if this targeted method by Jason Russell is the best way to end this horrifying war and crimes against humanity.

The idea of the Kony 2012 video is great: let's do SOMETHING to help. Let's rally our voices, utilize our social media tools and move our leadership to solve the problem. I like this. I do. But reality is that things are complicated. Things are not so black and white and "just click here" to solve the problem.

The thing is, this has been going on for 26 years. TWENTY SIX YEARS. The idea of removing Kony is a great one, it will not solve all the problems borne from this crisis any more than our adoption of one orphan solved the orphan crisis for the entire planet.

Reality is, this is a VERY COMPLICATED MATTER. We cannot sit at home and judge the best way to solve such things anymore than we can read a friend's status update that she's a bit blue and tell her exactly how to get over it.


WE CANNOT FIX AFRICA. ONLY JESUS CAN.

And He can! Oh yes He can! And His healing will be one heart at a time.

I am so glad we have all become aware of this war criminal and the people who have been victimized. They need our prayers. And shocking as it may be, Joseph Kony needs our prayers. He must be stopped and then he needs some serious mercy. It is counter my all human nature to want to pray FOR him, but we can rest in the knowledge that our God is JUST. He is also forgiving, and these matters are only between Kony and the Almighty. We are commanded to pray for our enemies. And I qualify him as my enemy because I align myself with the helpless children.

So, if clicking "share" on Facebook isn't going to solve the LRA problem and tweeting to get Kony famous isn't going to do it, what will?

So glad you asked.

I don't know.

But I do know this, it won't be easy. It will require sacrifice. It will require involvement. Two things we Americans just really don't want to do very much, do we?

Here's a story I came across today, of a woman becoming DOWNWARDLY MOBILE for the sake of Christ. She literally moved into a trailer park to better minister to fringe people for whom God had burdened her heart.

Ah. Now that involves sacrifice. That involves involvement!

See here's the thing, if saving my soul from sin cost my Savior EVERYTHING...why on earth would I assume I could get off scot free by an easy road? If I want to walk with Jesus, doing the work He has for me in this world, it will cost me. (Click here if you want to read Jesus say it in His own words.)

I do not have any answers about what needs to be done. I think the people who have been studying this problem don't know either. But I DO respect them, after all they haven't looked at a problem and shied away from it because it was too hard. They invented a solution. It may or may not be the right one, but they got involved. And although I may not get behind them 100%, I sure respect them for sticking their neck out and working for change.

I want to be keeping my eyes on Jesus and march when He says march. And He just might. I'm just waiting for the word.

Run YOUR race.

There is something that I think many of us suffer from...
                                                            the "disease" of comparing ourselves to others.

This can happen in ANY arena...

Your body.

Your intelligence.

Your beauty.

Your income.

Your reading list.

Your Facebook account.

Your vehicle.

Your education.

Your clothing.

Your speech.

Your children.

Your spouse.

Your checkbook.

Your parenting.

Your ability to hold it together.

Your decorating.

Your sewing.

Your cooking.

...and many more. (the list is endless, isn't it?)

Satan absolutely loves to get us going about, well, really anything! He cares not how he misguides our hearts, just THAT he gets our hearts off track.

Remember what Scripture says about him? "The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy..." John 10:10         He's out for blood, baby. Not just to irritate you.

(I learned this when he kicked me when I was down in the depths of grieving over another baby in the grave. He did not "give her a break, she's hurting," but rather came after me with a vehemence meant to destroy me once and for all.) I cannot help inserting a PRAISE GOD here for His faithfulness and the gift of Jesus who comes to give us ABUNDANCE in life (the rest of John 10:10!!)

I digress.

I used to struggle greatly with how my body compared to others. Now? It's all about how good of a mother I am. ...Or, actually APPEAR to be.

Since coming home from Africa with a former-orphan, I have been literally SWAMPED by my youngest three children's needs.

And honestly, there ain't a lot of hope that they are going to suddenly care about MY state of mind anytime soon. Toddlers, well, they are pretty much selfishness defined.

So the new area that Satan has tempted me with is watching other families via blogs and how they are "doing." I've listened to the lie that they are all doing better than I am.

I would be a fool to assume that anyone missed me blogging, so I'll just say it. I've written very few entries lately. I've had no ability to blog about my holiday decorations, cute ideas I had or new family traditions we installed this year. In fact, we didn't travel for the first time EVER over the holidays because the needs of our newest family member dictated such.

Not a single article of new clothing. Nobody matched in church on Christmas. In fact, we didn't even all go to church together over Christmas thanks to the family flu.

I thought about how this was his first Christmas and I should blog about it...but when the time came he was running a fever of over 102 and cried his way through Christmas morning. Blogworthy? Oh I don't think so.

My reality is: our house is messy and laundry is a continuous and never-done chore. I can't talk on the phone because I get mobbed by loud children who much of the time are fussing at each other. I tidy a room and the Littles untidy it again. Didn't I just vacuum that? Yes, yes I did, but someone has spilled the pretzel crumbs all over it. Someone comes to me crying. Someone else needs help with homework. Another child comes to me asking for love. (And yes, this is literally the verbiage used this morning by Darrah Kate, "Mommy, I t'ink I need sum wuv.") So I stop, kiss, solve problems, advise, listen and love. All the while the messes continue to whirl at breakneck speed. Not many craft projects are taking place.

I've had to stop following particular blogs that paint life with a well-groomed brush. I find myself looking at them and scouring them for faults. "Is their house REALLY that clutter free?!" "How does she think of all these ideas?" "How have they gotten their newly adopted children to attach so quickly?" "How can they afford that?" "They went where to serve whom?" "Matching outfits? Really?!" And I come back to my own life feeling like I don't measure up.

I've come to the realization that my dear Savior was pierced for this transgression. He was killed because of this sin of comparison. This is NOT how He wants me to live! I am not to live under a cloud of heaviness because I simply cannot keep up with [insert name of bloggy super mom here]! No! He wants my eyes where? Where again?

On Him.

Check it out. I think He's talking to ME!

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"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith." Hebrews 12:1-2

Two things: "And let us run with endurance the race God has set before US." I don't have to run your race. Or her race. I need only to run mine.

Ah. That's nice. And quite freeing too.

The second thing comes in verse 4. Get a load of this:
"After all, you have not yet given your lives in yours struggle against sin."

Gulp. Did you read that just now???

I haven't YET given my life in the struggle against sin. Wow. I'm not fully sure of what that verse means, but I can be sure that it means that I'm not done battling against the powerful force of sin. And that I haven't yet gone the distance in my effort to be free from it.

I have noticed that I can carry my carefully balanced load in an acceptable manner...until the unexpected comes along and demands my attention elsewhere. Like a house of cards it all crumbles and I am filled with intensity, stress and [gulp] yell at my children because of the stress I am under. I have learned that no matter what other people may be able to add to their plates, I cannot compare and must simply say no. I need to take on less so I am available for my children more. This is my race.

The process of saying no has been good for me. (You might try it!) I am forced to examine my worth in the eyes of Jesus again. It's not how MUCH I do, for how many people or how much money I raise for worthy causes. It's about doing what He asks me to do.

For now, that's simply to focus on the adjustment and attachment of our dear child from Uganda. Helping my other young children adjust to our new family and address the needs of each person with great care. It doesn't matter if other people agree or even understand. I just need to obey.

Sew matching outfits? Bake cutesy treats for the class at school? Volunteer at the nearby nursing home? Lead a Bible study? Assist with my child's team? Great ideas. But right now, I've just gotta run MY race.

And for now, those just aren't in my path.