Pure Chaos

The Lord said he was going to start with His house, and He was not lying.  EVERYTHING that can be shaken, will be.  I did not make it through the sifting of the wheat and tares, matter of fact, I ran away from my faith with my whole being after an event in my life, that I blamed on my handling of a situation over a decade earlier.  The hilarious part, simultaneously the heart shattering part, is to find that no matter how stupid I am, and how vehemently I question Him, He listens, and He answers.  He isn't a genie in a bottle, He's not concerned with appearances.  He also doesn't tell me everything I want to know, and He's normally in opposition to what I want. Hence, my tantrum this last year and a half as I had the audacity to believe Him to be unfaithful due to the pain and suffering of those around me, and what He allowed to sift me.  He doesn't flinch though.  He doesn't get offended when I question Him, because He's not surprised that I am.  

However, from what I can understand, He does require those that believe to respond to His leading to the very best of our ability in all areas. And that is where I fell off, or where I saw my immense limitations, your call.  This year has taught me so much I never wanted to learn, and also everything I needed to. He loves me, even when I don't act like I love Him, because He is faithful, even when I'm not.  I want to love God more than anything, but right now, I don't seem to love Him enough.  And He understands. The God who created ALL things, that can do anything, wants a relationship with flawed humans. Humans who haven't personally seen Him, but know of His mercy and love, because that was His plan for the world. I don't personally approve of that plan, and it does not matter.  Truth doesn't need anyone to believe in it for it to be true. Lord, please open our eyes and soften our hearts. We need you, even if we think we don't. Let's not put a box around that which we don't truly understand.  Let God be God. Or don't. 

Regardless, Lord God, start with me.

Love...

Why does it seem to be so hard for the body of Christ, the church, to love each other like He loves us?  It was His greatest commandment to us, and also our biggest failure to carry out.

We do so many good things in His name, yet if love is not the main marker of those, it's all for naught.  So many of us try to earn our way into the Lord's good graces even though we know better than to think it possible to do so.  Yet we still try.

We smile at those we gather with Sunday mornings, some genuine, some not so much, but we put on His love in our own way to the best of our ability.  I honestly believe we all desire to love like He does, we just suck at it.

I see why it's hard to love those who've hurt us, yet we need to.  I see why it's uncomfortable to be around those different than us, yet we need to.  I see why it's stretching for us to continue to show the love of Christ to those who don't seem to want to allow the Lord in and change their hearts, yet we need to.  What I don't understand is why it's hard for us to love those in our fellowship who've never done anything to us, yet we distance ourselves from them.  How do we rationalize any of it?

In the world we have our defenses to keep our hearts safe, or rather to try.  It normally doesn't work very well and ends up hurting us, but still we know that it's not safe so we try to protect ourselves.

In the church we are told that LOVE resides there, and that it's safe.  Many keep up their walls to protect themselves not willing to chance that the body of Christ truly is a place where His love reigns and they will be safe.  There are however some who take those words to heart and allow the essence of who they are to permeate that safe haven of love.  They look to the body of Christ to have the heart of Christ and so many times are then wounded deeply to find that the church looks just like the world in terms of their ability to love the unlovely.  How tragic is that?

Thankfully, there are also those who truly love like He does in the exact same body that those who don't belong to.  And, all of us, if we're blessed to the utmost, will encounter both.  One for refining us, and the other for showing us an example of what Christ's love in action looks like.  I am so incredibly grateful to have both in my life.

Now the answer to not being wounded in church is not in avoiding church. That on the surface takes care of the problem, but instead hurts us further.  We allow bitterness and resentment to grow where we should be allowing iron to sharpen iron.  What's necessary to grow in the spirit of Christ in such times where we are hurt is praying to have an unoffendable heart while loving the unlovely in those who've hurt you.

It's not fair to hold others to a standard of Christ's perfection in love, and not hold yourself accountable to the very same standard.  We need to have Christ's grace flow freely through us in love which covers a multitude of sins.  We need to take our eyes off the work our 'brothers and sisters' in Christ need to do, and allow the Holy Spirit of God to work in our hearts on what He's doing in us.

We need to not be okay with any area of our lives/minds/hearts that does not accurately reflect Jesus Christ's heart.  We need to throw ourselves upon His mercy asking Him to work in us that we would look like Him and thanking Him for doing exactly that.  He continues to work in us to will and to do for His good pleasure, and will finish the work He started.

Let us not hinder Him by our pride whether that pride be in self-exaltation or self-abasement.  Let us let Him love us into wholeness and work in us so that we may have the privilege of doing the exact same for His other children.  Love heals.  Thank You Father.  Thank You Jesus Christ.  Thank You Holy Spirit.

After anger, comes sadness

You ever go through something, and then learn where you were at in the situation through hindsight?  That's where I'm at now.  I've been struggling with anger for about 5 mo now, it's been surreptitiously intertwined through my day to day goings on, so much so that I couldn't isolate it, but just was aware of the presence.  I searched my psyche for the cause, blaming it on hormones because I was at such a loss to explain where it manifested from.  My husband and my SIL had both commented on how sad I looked, but I told them both that I was fine.  I had confided in my SIL that if anything I felt angry, but that lately it seemed to be breaking a bit and I had a bit of sadness and I much rather feel that that the anger.


My SIL responded to that with "Anger is just one step in the grieving process, nothing more, nothing less. The Lord has been grieved and continues to be grieved by the actions of His children, and even in the Bible the Lord reacted in anger as part of the grieving. There is nothing wrong with it, and it shall pass on to the next phase. And you are still a beacon for Christ as you go through it. I would be surprised if He removes the anger until its due course, as it is part of the healing process, and to deny it or rush it will only postpone the journey to the fullness of Christ. I love you so very much and also see His arms encircling you at this time. He knows your hurt, knows your heart, andmost of all knows the journey He is taking you on. Trust in Him fully, and those walls will get thinner and thinner, until you can see Him and feel the Holy Spirit. It's a sweet journey of the heart that you don't want to rush."


That touched my heart with this revelation that I was grieving the loss of my 4th baby, and that was okay.  I had just assumed that God was pouring out His grace allowing me to deal with life relatively unaffected by the miscarriage and the hell that surrounded that.  Of course at this time I had also suffered the loss of my 5th baby which I have no doubt affected the grieving process in some way, but I just mentally lock up the things that cause me anguish so I kept feeling like I was handling it so well, when in reality I just didn't deal with it.


The last month my anger has turned to sadness and it's actually an appreciated transition.  I've already been the underlying angry wife/mom/woman and to go back to that was just UGH!  I'm not a fan of the sadness, but I'll take it over the anger any day.  I don't know what God has planned for me, or how He's going to use this for His glory, but I choose to believe He can and He will.  So while my heart hurts, and my eyes tear up with the knowledge that my arms would have held a newborn tomorrow (I always induced one week early, lol).  I put my faith into the sweet presence of my Lord and Savior, that while I don't have all the answers or even indications of an answer, He does.  


I hope that the dates Sept 17th, 2011 and March 7th, 2012 won't always bring about the feeling of loss and hurt, and I believe that they won't.  I know that I'll see those boys in Heaven that I briefly carried here and saw their precious hearts beat in a beautiful, rhythmic, and amazing thumping that brought such joy to me to see and hear.  I continue to rejoice in the blessing of my 3 blessed boys that are God's gifts to me and my devoted husband, and I am thankful for all that I have.  May our babies be surrounded by the love of God,  both those with Him and those with us.  


For anyone dealing with a miscarriage, 40 Weeks by Paige Beselt is an amazing book to read. http://www.amazon.com/40-weeks-Paige-Beselt/dp/1460936361/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315621857&sr=8-1