Love Worth Pursuing

I returned from Refine the Retreat https://www.refineretreat.com/almost a week ago. Per the usual of my world I was not able to fully process until now.

The theme was Listen and that word called my name for quite a while before I finally said yes to go. Some of the stumbling blocks for me were time, and the fact that it was for creatives, something I was sure I was not. I signed up for it last November and immediately had the “who do I think I am” feeling along with so many other insecurities. But God kept whispering that I was supposed to be there and He had big plans for me. So I went. I had met a couple of the other attendees through other conferences but didn’t know anyone real well.

God started in right away Thursday night and kept going until Sunday morning. In a way that only God can do, all of the talks wove a tapestry of the ways God talks to us (because He still does). For me, He shows up in pictures dropped in my mind or phrases (not audible) that challenge me or comfort me but ALWAYS speak without fear or condemnation.

He reminded me of the calling He placed on me to write. Gave me a person to process with that has given me the most peace I have ever had about this writing thing. (Thanks, Christie Purifoy!) * He showed me where the armor I have carried (and needed) for certain times in my life needs to be laid down so I can run the race He has set out before me. He also showed me some secret altars that I have set up that have taken my eyes off of the only one who can save. Time to tear them down!

Will I always remember to get still and listen? Probably not, but it ALWAYS pays to stop and let God “catch” us. We need the fill up of God’s Truth and correction, BUT we also need the reminder that we are His Beloved and dearly loved.

p.s. I am still working on the website (not one of my strong suits) but am refusing to not write because it is not “perfect”

• http://www.christiepurifoy.com/

Today is the second anniversary of my mother’s death. A death that was written in God’s book of life long before she was born, she had done all that He had required of her and brought her home.

I have been delaying going here but also knowing that this is where God is calling me to.

My mom’s life was good. She was the oldest of three and born a blond in a sea of dark haired, dark skinned babies in Hawaii in 1947. Her father was in the Air Force and stationed in Honolulu after a war that he should not have survived.

My mother was also one of the kindest, most generous women I have ever known. She was an awesome cook and often cooked our Wednesday night meals for our UMYF (United Methodist Youth Fellowship) meals between confirmation and youth group among other things.

I grew up in the traditional 2 parent, churched family of the ’70’s. We had just enough but not too much. My mom stayed home and did daycare when needed while my dad worked as a forester/fire fighter with the U.S. government all of my childhood and most of my adulthood.

Then along came mid life for my mom, and issues started cropping up. A mental illness started to raise it’s ugly head, but no one wanted to notice or comment on it. My life as a young mom, a thousand plus miles from her parents, started to change. The phone calls asking, DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR MOM IS DOING? coming from near and far, changing the dynamic of my world.

While the details may be shared later, right now what needs to be known is I needed to learn who the real God, Yahweh, was to me. I had relied on religion, not a relationship with our Creator, to define who I was. I can tell you that I have learned a lot in the last 20+ years. About who I am, who God is and who my mom was and was not.

I mourn my mother’s passing and all that could have/should have been in a perfect world, but I also know that God is greater that all of it; my hurt, her hurt and things that were beyond all of our control.

Mental illness needs to be acknowledged as not just a spiritual issue but also a physical/hereditary one. When my mother went to be with Jesus, a dark cloud lifted off of me, one that I had not even realized settled.  My mother was not the dark cloud but her illness was. It had/has created long lasting effects on me and all of my family. I believe that she had accepted Christ as her savior as a young child and she shared Him with me and my brother, in her imperfect way, but in her last days she was not the mom I had grown up with. Christ was still there but hidden in the hurts of this very imperfect world.

I miss you mom.

Wow! Who knew it would take almost 8 months for me to be able to respond to my Rejected post.

God had a lot to teach me in the past months and I still have a lot to learn and unlearn. Did you catch that? For those of us who have lived some years, there is a lot that we have been taught and/or learned the hard way. Most of it is good and helpful but a lot is not, hence the unlearning.

I am discovering that a lot of my lack of desire to write, is my desire to not  rock the boat. God has asked me to write about my experience with some hard issues; things that are hard in the non-Christian world but even harder in the churched world. In the coming months, if I am obedient, I am going to have to deal with push back from people I love and respect as well as strangers. BUT, in keeping with the name of this blog I am turning to this:

God is worth pursuing, and when you believe in His Son, Jesus, you are chosen by Him and precious to him. Later in 1 Peter it says this:

I have been chosen, as has anyone who has accepted Jesus Christ as LORD, to declare the praises of what Christ has done for me. But, I will also say that the fight against you to proclaim those freedoms in Christ, will be fierce.

I need to step out in obedience and be strong in the LORD, not in my own abilities, and continue to proclaim His excellencies because He has called me out of darkness into His marvelous light.

How is He calling you out of darkness into His light, and how are you proclaiming that goodness?

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Who knew?? This is an actual post on the blog.

Many things have happened in the almost two years since I have posted here. I have moved, had a daughter graduate from college and move to Ireland for a year for an internship. My mother passed away in September of 2014 and that has led to the renewal of a relationship with my dad after almost 10 years.

I have recently come out of the haze of depression that had colored my life murky for almost three years. It is a slow process. The problem with depression is that it makes you very self-focused. Depending on the circumstances that can be a good thing, as it leads you to discovering the dark places in you that you tend to gloss over when feeling “human”. Sometimes, I feel like I learned a lot and other times, not so much.

How does this lead into my One Word for the new year? It is this: I feel like I have survived the depression and am ready to unleash myself onto the world and ministry. I have my own ideas about how this is to happen and God seems to have a completely different plan. One I am not too on board with.

I have leadership skills but not many places to use them. I feel like I have wisdom and no real place to share it. Here it is though, most of that is a lie. I have done both in the last three months, in places that I love but I don’t think are “enough” and not necessarily where I want to be. This is where the word HUMBLE comes in.

When I pick a word for the year I also find a bible verse that epitomizes what I want/need that to mean. This year it is 1 Peter 5:6 in the ESV:

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you,

Now I don’t know about you, but my pride wants to exalt myself every stinking time. I want what I want, when and where I want it and that will quickly separate me from God and doing his will. His agenda is so much bigger and better than mine, but mine is manageable under my own power, not a stretch.

But, here’s the thing. You are not humbling yourself out in front of everyone and their judgmental brother. You are humbling yourself under the protection of God’s mighty hand, which is a lot like being under His wings. I have to be honest though, that last part, the part about being exalted, that scares me. I want to control what that looks like and part of me wants to stay small but seen.

What does this look like for the new year? It will be me humbling myself right here on this blog. I have no coding skills to make this pretty and functional and the perfectionist in me is screaming. I am extremely random and not prone to do things I don’t think I am good at, especially for audiences that I can’t control.

But, I will go back to last year’s word, which was worthy; and 2 Thessalonians 1:11:

To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you WORTHY of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power

Thanks for riding this crazy wave with me.

 

Two weekends ago I went to our church’s women’s retreat, but I have to admit that I was not exactly jumping for joy at the thought. The problem was my attitude. I was feeling isolated and tired and rather self-pitying. I was pretty sure that God would show up but probably not for me. I was wrong. A huge shout out the to women’s retreat team of The Bridge Bible Church in Somerset, WI for their hearts for God and women.

Lisa Rambo from the Biggest Loser was our keynote speaker. She is from my neck of the woods and loves the Lord and did an awesome job of making scripture come alive. Saturday night, she told the story of the healing of the Bleeding Woman found in Mark 5:21-34.

If you are not familiar with the story, click the red link above and it will take you to it. It is the story of a woman who suffered from a bleeding disorder for 12 years. In those days, when it was “that time of the month” for a woman she was considered “unclean” and was not to be touched and made to live outside of city gates for that time. Twelve years she lived with this disorder, the Bible says she spent everything she had, suffered greatly at the hands of the doctors and had only gotten worse not better.

But God. She should have not even been in the crowd but KNEW that if only she could just touch Jesus’ robe, she would be healed. She was able to reach the hem even in the crush of people and was healed. He looked for her as he knew that power had gone from him, and knowing what had happened, she came forward. He had her tell him why she had touched his robe. He didn’t need to be told, after all he was God, but maybe some people in the crowd needed to hear her story.

To make a short story long, Lisa asked us what bloody mess we needed to take before Christ and confess. God has been doing a work in me and softening the edges, the hard places. Wooing me to surrender. I have been afraid to let go for a long time, afraid of the many thousands of pieces that I would shatter into if I accepted and surrendered the hurt.

I need to accept the fact that through circumstances beyond my control, and even some within my control, I was a bloody mess. The wounds were deep in places and some had even started to heal but I knew that I couldn’t finish the healing myself.

I am the strong one in my family of origin. I learned to pull up my big girl panties and deal with stuff. No time for feelings or looking back. I think I carried a cloak of shame of even being wounded. Nobody else seemed to care or even notice the mental illness that ravaged my mother. Why should I?

But God doesn’t need me to be the strong one. His grace is made perfect in my weakness.

God does see the hurt little girl that wants her mommy back. He wants to heal the wounds that others poor choices and even my own have inflicted on my heart. I just need to hand it all over. I know that He will not do it like I would. He will not pour a gallon of antiseptic on them and call it good. He is the Great Physician, Jehovah-Rapha, the One who Heals. He will go in carefully and stitch up my wounds with the greatest of care, and yours too, if you let him.

As I was listening to worship music this morning, this song by Tenth Avenue North got my attention. I have heard it many times and it is one of my favorites but today the words had a little more meaning. I hope you enjoy the song as much as I do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

STRENGTH

 

I am coming off of a year that has left me feeling weak.

Have you ever had one of those? The kind where God shook your foundations to rubble so He can rebuild the walls properly.

Yep, last year was one of those years. I was carrying a burden of expectations of myself and how my family of origin should be/look for so long that I had gotten used to the weight. I thought I was doing a good job of managing until God allowed the burden to fall fully on my shoulders. I have to admit, it almost crushed me. I am so grateful for a God who knew how much I could take but didn’t want me to continue to live in denial about my need for Him.

I am a strong willed striver and very self reliant by nature and these traits have helped get me this far in life. But, I also know that being strong my way gives me a hard heart. I have little grace for those “weaker” than me and rely on my own instincts and not on God’s grace, truth, and strength through the hard times. Isaiah 30:15 says this:

For thus said the Lord GOD, the Holy One of Israel,

“In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your STRENGTH.”  but you were unwilling,

(emphasis mine)

Did you catch that? In quietness and trust shall be your strength. But we want to work at it! Can being strong really be that easy? God assures me that it is.

I don’t want to be like the Israelites and unwilling  to be quiet and trust.

So  I am working on being quiet and trusting the LORD. I know in my heart of hearts that what this verse in Isaiah says is true.

Will you join me on learning how to be strong the biblical way this year?

 

 

 

You know that moment??

When all of the lies you have been believing about where you are and where you are destined to go are blown out of the water?

I just had one of those moments, sitting in my comfy chair listening to 70’s music. I know where God has been calling me; FAR out of my comfort zone. Into this writing, sharing, being a people person zone. I can be a people person, if I know you well I will talk your ear off, but if I don’t I will be a wallflower. That fear/lie of being rejected, of not being enough or too much is one I have lived with for a very long time and if I have never really written or shared emotions GASP! then the lie is comfortable.

But God is one of my very favorite phrases in the world. But God has bigger and much better plans for me and for you. He doesn’t want you believing the lie that you are not good enough for whatever task He has laid on your heart. If we are going to move forward then we need to lean on His strength and grace, which was His plan from the beginning.

I am going to leave you with this verse from Psalm 73:26:

     My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and      my portion forever.  (emphasis mine)