Rocks

I'm having flashbacks to many years ago, my bathroom floor has rocks on it.  I'm not talking big huge boulders, but pea gravel emptied from my granddaughter's shoes at bath time. The reason for the flashback, our daughter loved to fill her school uniform pockets with rocks when she was a child.  I would find them on the floor, in the washing machine, and of course often step on the tiniest pebble that felt like a razor through the bottom of my foot.  Yes, I go barefoot all the time and when there are rocks in the house - beware!

The fascination with rocks didn't end at filling pockets, we had rocks of all sorts  throughout our home.  There was even a lamp base filled with her most treasured rocks and gems. When we went on trips it was easy to bring something home, a new rock would suffice. That love of rocks has carried to our young granddaughters.  We go on golf cart rides down our country road and picking up rocks is a favorite activity.  Nothing fancy, just random slate, a little granite, some quartz, but you would think their buckets of rocks were the most priceless possession from the way they react.

This morning as I got up long before the sun, I was walking into my bathroom and of course stepped on one tiny piece of pea gravel that I missed after the girls' visit a few nights ago. Ouch!  As I looked at that small rock this morning I thought about how the tiniest thing can stop me cold.  

As I was studying Nehemiah during Lent, and his rebuilding of the wall, at first I was encouraged.  To read of his persistence against great obstacles, opposition and rebellion started out as a motivation to me. If you read the rest of the story (from where I left off) Nehemiah never gave up.  He kept on.    I just stopped.  I hit my own wall of resistance and I didn't push through.  It was as if a giant granite mountain was in front of me and I didn't want to try and figure out how to get around it.  Where Nehemiah was struggling to rebuild the wall I was struggling to tear one down.  One of the seasons (Lent/Easter) that I look forward to the most became a burden this year.

When I look back over the last 3 weeks there have been so many things that have filled my life and time.  

*taking steps to taper down a business that I have worked very hard on for 3 years

*taking larger steps to build a new business that excites me, is promising and is "what I've been looking for"

*working at a ministry job that is proving to be life changing for the women who are participating

*continual praying and support for family members

*heart wrenching sadness for loved ones suffering from cancer and other illnesses

The biggest obstacle has been a spiritual one. While I have been super reflective in prayer time and in seeking God more than ever, some of the normally accepted practices of a good Christian have been a struggle for me.  I'm disillusioned at what the 'church' has become. I struggle with yet another event, program or fundraiser. As I sat with 4 women around a table over the last 5 weeks we talked about life.  To look at this world from a perspective that is so different than my own has been eye opening.  But it is also making me ask "What have I been doing all of these years?" 

A tiny little rock that caused me pain this morning got me thinking.  Have I been relying on the Rock that I gave my life to so many years ago?  I can say, without a doubt - YES! Even though from appearances some may say I'm a backslider, or neglecting my duties as a Christian I feel closer to God than I ever have.  I am having real conversations with women about how God has moved in my life and in theirs.  I am witnessing volunteers give of themselves simply as a way of sharing the love of Christ, not for any recognition.  I feel alive, with the love of God, because I'm relying on Him to be my Rock.

I've been a faithful 'church goer' for most of my life.  Suddenly I feel alive as a Christ-follower.  To be sharing his story, his 'why' and see women experience God's mercy and grace from people they don't even know has been a revival.   I am truly blessed.  It has taken moving some rocks, stepping on pebbles and facing huge mountains in front of me to truly understand just what that blessing is.  Do I still have that battle to face on my indifference and disillusion about 'the church'?  Yes ~ but then I am reminded, I am the church, you are the church, WE are the church together.  Go, be the church!

Isaiah 26:4 Trust in the Lord always, for the Lord God is the eternal Rock.

My struggle with Holy Week

*WARNING* If you take offense at comments about Easter events, you may want to skip this post!

I may step on some toes with my post today, but the beauty of America is it is simply my opinion and I have the right to express it.  

I chose to skip attending church today.  Not because I'm a 'backslider' or wanted to sleep in, or because I didn't want to get ready - none of those things were true for me.  Even though I have worked for several churches in the past in programming, over the last decade I have battled an internal monster about what a lot of our western churches do in worship service.   I take my charge seriously to spread the love and grace from God, that I have received, with others. Especially with my young granddaughters.  In the past I have found it hard to explain to them the story we tell, and that they learn when we read Scripture, and balance that with secular parties and activities.  Now I know about the importance of the fellowship of believers - eating together etc.  But at this time of year I can't quite reconcile teaching about the triumphant entry of Jesus, leading up to the time-altering events of the remainder of the week - against an easter egg hunt, visit from the bunny etc.  I can remember vividly the message of salvation and forgiveness that I learned  and it had nothing to do with a great party at church.  For many, church has become just another party, we work to make it bigger, fancier and more convenient in hopes of reaching the lost.  I'm not saying I don't enjoy the social events of any season, and celebrating them with our family.  I simply don't try to make it part of my worship and adoration time with God.  I will no doubt be criticized by some for this opinion, and I say again it is simply that, my opinion.  I don't fault those of you that choose to worship and party in this manner. And I'm sure there are stories of some coming to their life in Christ through a social event.  I guess what I want my granddaughters to know more than anything is that God loves me, Jesus died for me and I value that and hold on to that.  I learned none of that from a fancy party or the 'biggest draw'.  I attended church alone, for the most part, as a child and I had adults that told me the story.  I listened, I heard the Gospel and I learned to pray.   More than that, I learned the life-giving message of Christ through the every day example of Christ followers, worship that was God centered and LOTS of self reflection.

I have been continuing to read in Nehemiah.  I am learning of his determination against great opposition to take on a task and complete it.    I know that my small absence from a worship service will have no effect in the bigger picture.  But I also know that I had a powerful conversation this morning with an 8 year old (as the 4 year old sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" - her favorite song from last December at church day care)  where we talked about Jesus being born, God having a task for him, and how this week we will remember his death.  Yet that 8 year old said "Grammy, but Jesus died on the cross so I can go to heaven someday, right?"    We also talked about the hard to understand concept of Jesus being with us, but how he died. So Holy Spirit - we covered that too!     Before I took those girls home, she said to me "Grammy, I want to love like God loves."  I think she gets it.

One last thing - I have seen a powerful move of God last week.  In the classes I teach at a local non-profit, while they primarily are job skills training we also have Bible study.  I have witnessed  women that wonder how they will get to class, or how they will pay for rent, learning how to use the computer and write resumes, but the thing they take away the most is praying for each other, supporting each other and already their favorite time of our classes is the time we study the Bible together.  We talk about how to apply it to our lives, and how knowing God and learning about Him can impact how we treat others and how we view ourselves.  

May your week be blessed - mine will be spent in deep prayer, remembering the very reason I carry the label Christian, and how that all came to be.  It is a heart wrenching time of year, but it changed my life more than any one thing ..........I will remember.

Matthew 28:18-20 Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him - but some of them doubted. Jesus came and told his disciplies,  "I have been given authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."

Grumble, grumble, grumble......

Grumble: To murmur with discontent; to utter a low voice by way of complaint.

I started my day grumbling.  After 3 hours and 23 minutes (with many restless minutes included - according to my Fitbit app), I laid awake in my bed from 1:43 until I finally gave up, got up and got coffee at 5am. I don't feel particularly bad, just grumbling because I couldn't sleep.

Then I grumbled because the windows were open after a very warm day yesterday, but now the wind is blowing and temp outside is 46 = cold house.  

As usual I started my day with Bible reading and when I went to Nehemiah, imagine my surprise at the next passage....... grumbling! Actually they were doing more than grumbling - let's look:

Nehemiah 5:1-7 About this time some of the men and their wives raised a cry of protest against their fellow Jews. They were saying, "We have such large families. We need more food to survive."  Others said, "We have mortgaged our fields, vineyards, and homes to get food during the famine." And others said, "We have had to borrow money on our fields and vineyards to pay our taxes. We belong to the same family as those who are wealthy, and our children are just like theirs. Yet we must sell our children into slavery just to get enough money to live. We have already sold some of our daughters, and we are helpless to do anything about it, for our fields and vineyards are already mortgaged to others."  When I heard their complaints I was very angry. After thinking it over, I spoke out against these nobles and officials. I told them, "You are hurting your own relatives by charging interest when they borrow money!" Then I called a public meeting to solve the problem.

If you read on in the passage you will see that not only were they facing the difficult task of rebuilding that wall but they were fighting against themselves in the process. Nehemiah was bold, once again, and charged those in power to look at what they were doing to their own people.  Accountability.  Let's look at one more small passage as they  (the officials) responded:

Nehemiah 5:12-13 They replied, "We will give back everything and demand nothing more from the people. We will do as you say." Then I called the priests and made the nobles and officials swear to do what they had promised. I shook out the folds of my robe and said, "If you fail to keep your promise, may God shake you like this from your homes and from your property!" The whole assembly responded, "Amen," and they praised the Lord. And the people did as they had promised.

I sat here for a few minutes and thought about grumbling.  The wall builders had every reason to be upset, they were being taken advantage of by those in power. Once again I love Nehemiah's reaction. He listened, he gathered information and he took action. He led by example and he charged those around him to remember the goodness of God.

I need to read big stories like this to remind me that I grumble about really unimportant things. So I didn't sleep as well as I would have liked - I have a very comfortable bed, I don't have to worry about where I will live or eat.  I grumble about the weather (often!) - even though there is nothing I can do about it.  I grumble when things don't go my way, when maybe things need to go a different way because God has a better plan!

Today I chose to turn that grumbling around with a very little thing.  Instead of grumbling about the windows being left open and the house being cold I closed the windows and built a fire!  There won't be many more days, if any, this season when I can enjoy my morning coffee by a nice fire.  I choose gratitude about the very thing I started my day grumbling over.

I may have the tendency to grumble today, functioning on so little sleep.  I'm making the promise right here to 'think before I grumble' today.  I charge you to do the same. Whether you come up against small irritations or big oppressive issues, pause to consider your reaction.  Look for gratitude in each situation, even if you have to dig for it. Let's make it a grumble-free day!

PS This change in weather actually makes me HAPPY!  I do not like heat, so any cooler/cold days we get make me smile.

Are you seeing clearly?

I have such a routine each morning when I get up.  Coffee, devotional/Bible reading, prayer, writing of some sort, daily goals and calendar review ~ my list is long!  Even though I do a lot electronically I'm a big pencil and paper gal, so I'm always jotting notes, making lists and just writing.  As I was looking at my calendar for today I remembered that I have my annual eye exam later this morning. I've been waiting for this day, as my glasses need constant adjusting and I'm sure I'm in for an Rx change.  It will be nice to have answers and know that some improvement will be made (I hope!)

However, I also know that I will have my eyes dilated mid-morning, so lots of reading and writing will be out of the question for a few hours.  You have no idea how frustrating that is for someone that is always doing those two things! I know that I will be sitting here trying my best to make things come into focus when I simply have to wait for the effects of those drops to wear off. Blurred vision is coming!

I spent last week in the classes I was teaching going over personality test results.  I had only spent a couple of days with 4 women that are taking the class and when I asked them "What do you think my personality type is?"  All 4 said "EXTROVERT!"  I love it when I ask that question and then I get to reveal my traits, before I share theirs with them.  You see, I actually test out as a pretty strong introvert.  Though I absolutely love teaching, public speaking and leading I really have strong introvert tendencies.  I crave solitude, quiet and need frequent times alone to recharge.  Some of my other traits are quite recognizable but that one is often not guessed at all.  I wrote a little bit about this in my last post, about how surprised those women were when I told them the results of their own tests.  I have thought about it so much over the last few days, it is still rattling around in my head.  We think we know and understand people around us, we think we have a clear picture of who they are and what they are like.  The process for these classes that I am teaching was to review an application, do a short interview and then we all met to start the job and life skills classes.  I will meet with this group of 4 women from now until the end of May, 3 days each week. After just one week of classes my first impressions are already proving to be somewhat wrong. There are unexpected treasures in each of these women that I'm just beginning to discover. The really cool thing is to watch them discover those things about themselves. 

Do you have blurred vision when it comes to those around you? Do you only see an image but don't really take the time to get to know them or understand them? It can be a challenge, and it can take us out of our comfort zone to take that step to really learn about someone. Ask questions, listen and look beyond that first impression.  You may be the only one who extends a hand of compassion, understanding and/or acceptance to those you encounter.

Set out today to see others as God sees them.  I assure you, when you keep that thought in your mind always - to view others as God does - your opinion will change, and it might just change you!  I know it does me.  

1 Corinthians 13:12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely. NLT

Prayer: Lord, help me see clearly today.  Open my heart to You, so that I may in turn open mine to others. Guide my thoughts, words and actions in all that I do so that it be pleasing to You.  ~Amen~