Miley: Rolling Out the New Product Line

So sure. Miley’s performance was disturbing. But where is the equal uproar about Lady Gaga’s thong? Maybe it is right next to Beyonce’s buxom cleavage,  which is right next to Britney’s belly button piercing, which is right next to Madonna’s pointed bra. I guess we should throw Pink’s pushing-the-limits videos in there too just for good measure. If you ask me, Miley was just trying to keep up with the big girls. These daring divas cast long shadows of perversion, seduction and distorted womanhood, so Miley had to show she was willing to do anything to join the club.

Are any of us really surprised?  Just like Apple rolls out its “all-new” tech masterpieces, the music industry is constantly on the search for its new Femme Fatale. Not familiar with that expression? Fatal Woman. 1. A woman of great seductive charm who leads men into compromising or dangerous situations.IMG_0487

We’ve seen many such transformations as in Madonna’s Like a Virgin. We saw it when Britney shed her Catholic school uniform. And now Hannah Montana has become Slutty Cyrus.  But we knew this right?

We live in a culture where women are products defined by their s-e-x appeal.  They are for consumption as long as their beauty, audacity, and plastic surgery holds up. This is no surprise.

What does surprise me why we look to them for inspiration…who’s responsible for that?

What I am challenging is our discernment. There is evil in this world.  This evil has one desire: to destroy the image of God. In the man. In the woman. No surprise.

Miley’ s performance (as well as others)  is  an example of destroying the image of both men and women.  A good looking man imitating sex with a good looking woman. No love. No thought. No soul. No commitment. Just sex. This being the sum total of life.  It was desperately clear in the way Miley kept addressing her crotch. It was as if she was saying: “Please notice my vagina. My value is based only on what I am willing to do with my vagina.”

Think that is a distortion of our God identity?

So how then shall we live? Like panicked hermits, sheltering our kids and husbands? Or, like judgmental finger-pointers who slander or, perhaps worse, pity these women/ products? Such entertainers have made deliberate choices and profited from them.  Our responsibility is to connect the dots with Miley and with Jesus when he asked, “What does it profit a [woman] to gain the whole world but lose [her] soul?” (Mark 8).

How about we take cues from Daniel?  Daniel was stolen from his family when he was in his teens. That means, up until that time, his parents had been soaking him in God’s truth, God’s love and faithfulness.  So when he was ripped from their care, Daniel was still able to think, discern, choose God’s ways in the middle of a culture that was more even evil than ours is today. Daniel worked for the wicked king, yet he lived a distinct God life right in the middle of a perverse kingdom.  He didn’t excuse it or join it. He didn’t run from it.  He brought God into the middle of it. His divine courage and wisdom is a model for us today.

We may be offended by Miley, Lady Gaga or the others, but we don’t look to them for inspiration or motivation anyway. ( Do we?) Daniel didn’t expect his coworkers or boss to be the model for godliness. He depended on God to be in him and work through him.  His life is one powerful story after another of God showing up.  Daniel completely changed the world, for good, by following God.  In the same way today, we look to Jesus for His power, His definition.

Loving God means something.  You see different. You think different.  You choose different.  Living in the Spirit empowers you to see and stand for the Kingdom of God, even when the world wallows in its own vomit. We don’t get sucked into the world.  We pull the world toward Jesus.  Like Daniel, we bring the goodness of God into this mix. We stand for truth about who we really are as God’s people. We tell our daughters in detail what these rank role models  are doing and why…selling their body and their soul for some sense of power and fame.  We tell our children how to avoid the same pitfalls in their own lives and give them better goals to aim for.

They can be seductresses or they can be warriors in the kingdom.  I bet, if you tell them the truth, they will see real power and choose God.

Bikinis, Boys and Tan Lines…Oh My!

I recently posted a very articulate video on the origin of the bikini and its less than desired result for empowering women. (Jessica Rey and the Evolution of the Bikini.  http://youtu.be/WJVHRJbgLz8 ) The bikini’s history and the current status of billions of dollars in sales is astounding. Confronting. Worthy of consideration. And yet, I must confess, while I loved her thoughts and challenges—uhm,  I hated her modest swimsuits. At least for me. Why? Because I hate tan lines.

It’s crazy, I know. Don’t judge me.  Most of my friends have no issue with tan lines. But alas, I do. Joie de vivre. Right?

But tan lines or not, there remains this nagging issue of whether our girls are being told the truth about their exposure. And I’m not talking about sun screen.IMG_4974

Before I begin let’s clarify. I am not the bathing suit police. I have my own contradictions to wrestle, as you will soon see.  Yet, here are some  thoughts about the bikini’s affect on young women, and men.

I vividly remember being in Florida in my twenties. I was by myself, so no peer pressure, and I was there for one purpose, tanning.  I was also in the best shape of my life. So my itsy, bitsy bikini, consisting of approximately four triangles and some string, was simply functional for me. Not tempting, not immoral, just functional. Until.

Until I went to the snack bar without putting on a cover up. I was suddenly conscious of eyes on me. A lot of eyes. Men’s eyes ravaged my body, and women’s eyes sneered in distaste. It wasn’t that I was so captivating, but that I was so BARE.

I had not seen myself the way I was now being seen—nearly naked.

It took me years of studying male-female reactions, a relationship with Jesus, and having daughters of my own to understand what happened that day. The short version? The female form carries a lot of power. It’s a God thing and a good thing. And it’s under attack.

As Ms. Rey stated, women have the power to be treated as objects or to the power to reveal their dignity. This is an all but lost notion among mothers as well as daughters. She also went on to explain that OUR choices affect men negatively, which causes a chain reaction of men viewing us negatively.  The bikini is a big factor in this dance.

For some girls, bikinis start young. “They are just little girls, it doesn’t matter” I often hear moms say. Their logic is little girls have no breasts, no awareness of their future allure, so their  bodies are in neutral. However, the reality is year after year they teach little girls that it is normal to be nearly naked in public. This normal produces a cluelessness about their personal power and a lack of knowledge of  how to protect it when breasts and hips do arrive on the scene.

For some girls, moving into a bikini is a sign of maturity. For me as a preteen, the mark of becoming a woman was wearing a bikini and filling it out. As women floated past in their lycra underwear, my friends and I understood it to be a rite of passage. A next level. A mark of beauty.

What’s even more disturbing was the unspoken female agreement:  fat women don’t wear bikinis. Thin women do. The problem was (and is), how thin do you have to be to be in a bikini?  The following years for us as blossoming women were filled with striving and shame over wanting minimal tan lines but still needing to have the “right size” to wear a bikini. This thought lingers on.

Fast forward to some much needed maturity, (whew), some new perspectives on beauty, and the dawning revelation of the power of a woman’s body.

Over time I realized that the cute girl in the bikini was not just getting the admiration of her guy friends, she was also getting gawked by every male she passed. Eeww. She either didn’t know it, or fed off of the buzz of male attention.  But I began to question, is this the sum total of her beauty? To have a guy consume her visually?

My last beach trip made me sick.  The new ‘brazilian’ bikini bottom made its debut. So while the lovely woman posed casually with her friends, half of her arse hanging out of her suit, the bar full of men nearby were crudely discussing the need for additional Viagra pills.

Is this the empowered woman we are all working so hard for?

Who is the culprit? The men who treat her as a sex object? Or the woman for presenting herself as one?

This beauty things keeps rearing its ugly head (no pun intended). And it’s not a quick answer. With friends at the pool the other day we did a highly UN-scientific survey. We looked at several females in bikinis and noticed a striking difference in our reactions. From flat line to wow factor.

Fit mom in bikini running after two kids. No problem. Not much excitement.

Sort of fit sixty year old in modest bikini. Nada.

Overweight teenager in a bikini with lots of belly and thigh action. Not so much.

But the off-duty svelte lifeguard, bronzed and firm,  flashing her tini-kini? Yep the whole audience, male, female, young and old watched her as she strolled by.

What is that? Brainwashing? Years of telling us what beauty is, or is not? Maybe. But it is Reality for sure.

So what the heck am I saying? Here comes the hard part for me personally. I don’t like how I view bikinis based on beauty. I hate it, in fact. The rules seem different depending age and stage of life. They seem more dangerous when the woman is using her body to say, “I am so available.”

When I go to the beach, surrounded by strangers,  I find I have disqualified myself so I think I can wear whatever, within reason, as long as I am sitting down and not parading the shoreline.  Yes I am beautiful, but I have no pressure, or desire, to gather attention. Great. Happy tanning for me.

What about my beautiful daughters? The developed one, and the one on the way?
Do I want a boy, man, male lusting after my daughters? No. (God help these men…)

I started my girls out in one pieces. And now, they wear one pieces by choice. I’m glad for that. They will have to navigate this as they get older. But for now, it seems “unnatural” for them to go out in public in less clothes than their underwear, which they rightly hide in behind closed doors. My daughters are more modest, and self- honoring that I was.  I’m glad for that too.

Here is the crux of the issue.  Our bodies are the temple of God. They are to bring HIM glory.  Not a cheap thrill.

If a woman wants a man to take her seriously, maybe she should start with herself? Does she take herself seriously? Does she own and value the beauty she carries? Does she honor herself in a way that is not easy pickings?

Moms are we teaching this to our daughters?

Just because guys like to look, doesn’t mean they get a free peep show.

And what about the responsibility we have to our brothers of all ages?  Do women understand how  and why to honor them with what we wear?

It seems to me that while we are busy criticizing the men for being animals, we might want to see who is hanging the fresh meat in front of their faces…

Let’s help our daughters become more than bait.

 

The Four Letter Word We All Fear: R-E-S-T

IMG_5601My friend Kate looked kindly at me. “Rest is a good thing. God has created all of creation to rest. Day and Night. Seasons. Even the human body needs sleep every day. It’s God’s idea. His design,” she said.

“I know but it feels like I’m doing something wrong if I can’t do all I am supposed to do.” I said, my eyes stinging with tears.

“All I am supposed to do… Hmmm. Says who?” she said with a smile.

This conversation took place a couple of months ago. It became a catalyst for a life altering revelation from the Lord. What’s ironic is that He started the Rest conversation probably three years ago. I see now it is a growth area that He simply won’t stop talking about. Which means it is really, really important to Him, which means it is really, really important to us.

Lesson One: Years ago, a group of older women were laying hands on me and praying.  Two of them kept saying that I didn’t know how to rest. In my highly spiritual state, I got offended.

Ding. First sign you are a performance junkie is to get defensive when someone tells you are too busy.  I complained to the Lord as they were praying, “God I am trying to do all you have called me to. Are you mad at me? Is this not enough? Am I not doing it right?”

His response was to teach me how to “rest in the presence of the Lord.”

Revelation One: Rest means there is a confidence deep in our soul that God is with us, hears us, responds to us, loves us. This “resting place” becomes our starting point. Ground Zero. We build life on this foundation. All that happens good or bad begins with this one truth: God loves me completely all the time. When we settle this issue, what follows is a quiet assurance, a resting, in the our spirit. Otherwise we strive, worry, defend, blame, or run from God.  Rest means we can’t run from Him. We are built on Him.

Lesson Two: Two years ago I was at the beach soaking in His presence. I asked God how I could maintain the richness of our connection once I got home to routines and demands.
“You must reorder your life,” He said, plain as day.

This comment created an awareness of how a) my stuff owns me, b) my to-do list, email, FB, and pleasing others is more of a priority than my God connection and c) my Drive-thru Christianity could not satisfy the deeper hunger in  my spirit.

His response was to teach me how to surrender my ways to His ways.

Revelation Two: Rest requires, no demands, a deeper understanding of God. I like to think of myself as a God lover. But when God told me to reorder, I saw how Un-Jesus my life really looked. So reordering meant saying no to doing a 1000 things at once, purging possessions, risking reputation, forcing my schedule to serve me, instead of me being a slave to my calendar.  Rest has meant truly “seeking first the Kingdom of God” and all the other things have been added. Or not.

I don’t want to blow past this.  The Roman Empire was as busy as the American Empire is but Jesus maintained His peace and joy.  He invites us into the same kind of God Life as we live our lives.  We don’t get bonus point for being exhausted, nasty, booked-up believers.  What pleases the Father is when we look like His Son.  Period.

Ouch.

Lesson Three: All this brings me to a couple of months ago when I had lunch with my friend Kate and then dinner with my friend Dana. I told each of them about my exhaustion, my lack of motivation, even to be candid, my irritation. I didn’t understand what was happening in my heart although I had gone through this reorder and focus on the Lord. Thank God for godly friends. Through them, I saw that I had just completed one of the most outpouring seasons of my life. It was all done by God, for God and in God. But now it was time to… Really? They both said the “R” word.

Again?  Still? I am still working on Rest?   I saw that I had made great progress.

Resting place? Check.

Reorder? Check.

Replenish? Uh, say what? I still had missing pieces.

His response was to teach me that rest is about starting, not just stopping.

Revelation Three: Rest isn’t just not doing things that cause stress or fatigue. It is about adding in those things that feed our heart, soul, mind and spirit.  The word Sabbath came up in a brand new way. Not the living under the law kind of Sabbath.  But a God-given breather, mini-vacation, refresher kind of Sabbath.

Let me ask you these questions. Try to write out your answers.

What do you do that makes your heart soar?

What brings joy to your soul?

What delights you?

What do you do that’s fun?

If you are like me, you might be staring dumbly into space.  I had to discover these answers. But let’s suppose you can actually formulate answers, so let me ask you this. Do you do any of these on a scheduled, committed basis? Rest comes when these things are in place.  Don’t have time? Then reorder.

Joy, delight, fun are kingdom words. They are child-like words. We don’t get points for being grown ups all the time.  Jesus called us to become like little children. To laugh, to play, to enjoy, to be excited over the smallest things. This may be our greatest act of worship.  Maybe that is why rest is so important to God.  And to us.

 

Summertime…the Rest of the Story

IMG_5630It is too many thoughts to pack into a couple of paragraphs. But one word worthy of sharing is…rest.  I used to be woefully bad at it. I was formerly ignorant of its meaning. But all that is changing. Let me just say that I have read three novels, have a book called “Play” on my bedside table, and I have already been in the pool playing with my kids.

Rest is a holy word.

It is rich with meaning and it actually implies action. Replenish. Delight. Release. Trust. Enjoy. Stop.  All these are actions that come from rest.

I will unpack all this later, but for today, I just wanted to give you a head’s up that Jana, and WGR for that matter, is going to look a little different. Cooking videos are coming. Why? Just because they are fun. Blogs are coming just because God is bubbling up in me. Worship is coming because  at our core that is the point of this whole thing called life.

So watch for us and watch out for change….It’s gonna be great.

When a Virgin Asks about Not Being One…

“From what I hear it sounds pretty great,” said this beautiful teenager.  She was talking about some of her friends who had already taken the plunge into having sex. “It is the social norm, you know” she said plainly.

My mind exploded with images, stories, statistics. I felt like I was standing on the edge of a sexual minefield and this young woman was standing on the opposite side. Somehow,  somehow, my job was to tell her how and why to walk through this minefield without blowing herself up.

“It is great, perhaps for the moment,” I said, recalling the rush of his attention, the allure of the distorted desire.  “But there is more, so much more.”

Here are some of the thoughts we kicked around. I pray it will be a worthy guide for this wIMG_3141oman but also for her scores of sisters, and brothers, yet to walk through the minefield.

For those of us who didn’t wait, “there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”  However. If we are deep down honest, now we know  the truth. So we dare not water down the truth to assuage our own disappointing choices.

Wise not Happy
A lot of girls give in to sex to “be happy.” They think it will make them happy. But more often it is about making someone else happy. Happiness via sex is like the crocodile in Peter Pan—once the taste is awakened, there is a hunger for more. And more. We are not shooting for happy right now in this moment. We are shooting for wise, which is a much harder but a much greater goal. We ask much harder questions:

Is this surrender of control over my own body wise?
Does this advance MY goals, not the guy’s wants, or my friends’ pressure?

I told this young woman, “in all my work with women I have never met a woman who didn’t regret giving her virginity away for nothing.”  There is a really high cost and a really high risk.

Whether we like it or not, the woman bears the brunt of sex. Whether through loss of reputation, getting a disease, losing scholarships due to pregnancy, or facing single parenting, adoption (or even abortion), the woman has the most to lose. She must be the wise one to rise up and protect her heart and future.

Trading a $1 for a Million Bucks
“Sex is a trusting God issue,” I explained.  She looked at me with a shocked expression. When we give into some temptation outside of God’s design, we are settling for the lesser payoff. For example,  let’s say sex now is worth a dollar and in marriage worth a million dollars.  That one dollar bill right now looks good. And so we think, “Hey, one dollar now is better than nothing.”  But there is the lie.  It’s not nothing, it’s just  later on.

God has promised abundance and favor when we do things His way. He promises a million bucks of freedom, hope and connection in marriage.  Do we trust that He will really come through? Do we trust that God has good for us, later on? Can we trust God to satisfy our desire, right now in the waiting?  One dollar vs. one million.

Hanging around
Sex with others doesn’t just go away.  The memories can hurt for a long time, even the good memories.  How many women, and men, have found themselves unable to be truly intimate with their spouse because of past sexual encounters? By truly intimate I mean God-powered, heart-connected, physically-abandoned sex.  Spirit, emotion and body sex—this is what God has in mind.  Our choices to gratify ourselves for the moment really distract from the longer sexual journey inside marriage. It takes a lot of work to get rid of the memories, comparisons, and shame once we finally meet our husbands.

Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen
As my mind  flashed around memories, and even scanned the hard journey of my own marriage, I found I didn’t know how to express one thing: the regret.  I took a deep breath and began.

“I don’t know that you can hear this, but there comes a moment after you meet the man of your heart. It may be right away, or sometime later, for me it was after I became a Christian, but this wave comes over you and you realize that this is God man’s for you. In that moment, you look at the ones who have gone before. They took what rightfully belonged to your husband.  There are all these ‘one and only first times.’ And you realize, you gave those to someone else. It really breaks your heart. Can you see why wise now is better than happy now?”

Enjoy the best of Jesus
I asked this young Christian if she knew there is an anointing on the present generations  for increased power and worship? She said yes she did and so did her friends.

I think the enemy knows that too. That’s why he is unleashing his greatest tactics to keep young women and men preoccupied by all the sexual stimulation, disconnected from true relationships by their devices and deceived into thinking they can have the best of heaven and the best of the world.

How do they fight then?  Their best weapon is a true and real intimacy with God.  There is no better lover than Jesus.  No greater romantic, protector, or satisfier.  We must continue to call them to the love of the Father. They will follow where we are going. So we must ask, are we as adults enjoying the best of Jesus? Are we showing them the God they need for staying power through the minefield?

How would you feel?
The question jumped in my throat.  She was asking, without asking, would you still love me if I had sex? I took another deep breath, shot up an arrow prayer and replied:

“This is your choice to make. I had my choices and I have to live with them.  I have tried to tell you the truth best I can—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  Now you have to decide what you are worth, what you are willing to fight for.  My strong desire is that you wait. Wait on God. Wait for God. Wait in God. But my love for you is not determined by  your choices. I choose to love you. No matter what.”

God we pray your covering over the younger generations. Give us boldness to speak and to stand. Give them wisdom and courage beyond their years. Satisfy us with your love dear Jesus. Amen

 

What I Gave Myself for Mother’s Day 2013

This is not for the faint of heart. And if you can’t relate, please…spare me the correction. The voices in my head are loud enough without your “I can’t relate” voice singing harmony. Heck, it’s taken me this long to process all that God downloaded, and even still, I was typing through tears. Hopefully, some of you moms will appreciate my gift and want to get it too.

The morning of Mother’s day rolled around and I got snuggles from both my girls and the cats, home-made cards, coffee in bed from Chuck, and all is well. Until. Until Chuck sweetly and innocently asked, “What do you love best about being a mom?”

I started bawling…IMG_1082

Chuck’s utter shock and dismay was equaled only by my own shock over the breach in my bastion of emotions.  “What’s. The. Matter?” he said wide eyed. Like a crack in a dyke that has been  ramrodded one too many times, the dam broke.

“I can’t think about what I love best about being a mom because I have just been sitting for the last two weeks examining all the places I have failed.  I see all these wounds in my girls and I know I did that.  I see my own selfishness, stubbornness, and being controlling.  I hear them being unkind and angry to each other and I know they learned that from me.  I love being a mom more then I ever thought possible but it is the most painful thing I have every experienced.  I know I have done some things right but to love someone so much and still hurt them—it’s more than I can bear sometimes,” I said in a rush between sobs.

I pulled my bedspread over my face and wept.  Chuck carefully came over and held me, trying to comfort his neurotic wife. Inside I was thinking, “Idiot. Why did you let that out in the open?” But deeper inside, I heard the Spirit say, “We will talk about this later.”  So I had a good cry, got my face back on, Chuck took a deep breath, and we were back to normal.

Until. Until I got to church. And the conversation continued.

For several years, my family has celebrated Father’s day by blessing Chuck with things we appreciate about him. We have then taken time to tell God the things we love about Him being our Father. It’s been so rich and powerful to sit in Him enjoying us as we enjoyed Him. However, I have never done that on Mother’s Day.  I don’t know why. It’s as if somehow the male mantra of doctrine never prompted us  to consider God as a great Mother, although the Bible is full of “mothering” names and actions. This was the day to break that barrier.  I began listing all the ways that God had been a nurturing, faithful, and tender Mother to me.

I said out loud, “You alone are the role model for Mother and Father.”  The loving correction I received next could only have come from a  Parent who is fully invested in me walking in fullness and freedom.

“There is no room for weakness in your parenting,” He said.

“I know,” I said, and began to cry again. “I want to be a perfect parent, and I can’t be.”

“That’s My job” he said ever so tenderly. “You are trying to be perfect, instead of embracing your weakness— for My glory.”

I had to just sit in that.  How do I embrace my weakness? How do I resist the urge  to immediately create a 1-2-3 Fix-it Plan?  How do I resist the temptation to 1) beat myself up for all my mistakes, 2) blame others for what I am alone responsible for, or, 3) live in some watered-down denial that ‘I did the best I could do’?

God interrupted. “Not denial. But Grief. Acceptance. Grace.”

Grief. He was calling me to grieve the mistakes. Don’t blame, deny or gloss over. Just grieve. Yes I blew that. Yes I missed that. Yes I chose poorly there. Yes I hurt you and I hurt me too. Yes I am sad about this. Really sad about the loss of time and opportunity. But I can’t live there forever. Right on the heels of a true grieving is an acceptance that we are all learning all the time.

Acceptance. Raising little humans is hard.  I’ve never been a parent before.  I have permission to learn. I tell my girls that “failing is part of the process just learn from it. True failure is when you quit trying.” I have to believe my own counsel. I have to keep learning and failure is a great teacher. I have to accept that God will carry my girls through my failures and successes.

Grace. Did I believe that God was big enough and strong enough to wash over my girls’ wounds and my wounds with His grace? Did I believe that God could restore, redeem, or resurrect these stages of childhood that are ever fleeting?

That morning He brought this verse to mind: “He fills everything in every way.” And then these words flooded through my soul like windows thrown open to let fresh spring breezes clear the stagnant air:
God’s grace fills every thing I missed.
God’s love fills every thing I broke.
God heals every thing I wounded.

He showed me that one of the best things I could share with my children is how God shows up strong in my weakness. But first, I had to admit to God, to myself and to my kids that I have weaknesses.

How would they ever learn to rely on God’s help in their weaknesses, if they have never seen Chuck and I own our weaknesses and  seen God shine through them? Wow. What a concept. Instead of shame and condemnation for not being a perfect mom, I could experience compassion and grace for myself. In greater dependence on the Spirit and far less pressure to perform, I could learn to love these children as much as I can, shepherd them in Jesus with as much wisdom as I can, and trust God to fill in all the gaps.

What I gave myself for Mother’s Day was a Grace Reality Check.  There is a perfect Parent. And it’s not me. Can’t be me. Was never meant to be me. But I am a well loved child who has the Perfect Parent. And THIS is what I can teach to my children: the fullness of Jesus made known through our weakness.

Thank you God for being such a great Mom.

“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Ephesians 1:22-23

The More of Marriage: a mini-series, part 2

Marriage has shown me my lack of grace, my need for grace, and the reality  of God’s grace.

I have these random memories.  Like puzzle pieces, God put things into place long before I was even aware He was working on me.  One memory is of my arrogant self telling our supposed pre-marrital counselor (snort) that “I am a great catch. And I don’t need Chuck, but I choose him.”  (Poor counselor. Poor Chuck.)

Fast forward to somewhere around year 5 when a wise friend from church asked me what I would do to save my already suffering marriage. I said emphatically, “ANYTHING.”IMG_0972

“Would you quit your job?” he said looking me dead in the eye without flinching. He had nailed my pride,  independence, superiority.  Shocked by the suggested sacrifice, I had to sit squarely and solemnly in the reality of being a liar.  I wouldn’t really do ANYTHING.  I  only wanted to do enough to  make Chuck act better for me.  After a great deal of gnashing my teeth with God, I realized that He could and would do ANYTHING — if my heart was humble before Him.

So I did. It did. God did.   I quit my job and launched my marriage in a different direction.  God was up to something better for me, for us.  My marriage radically changed when I saw my lack of grace for Chuck and I acknowledged  my need for grace to let go of ideas and actions that were poisoning my marriage. It is one thing to say you’re committed; it is another thing to act committed —especially when those acts require sacrifice.  Jesus  knows all about the cost of sacrifice, and it’s why He offers us His loving grace to do it.

From years 10-15,  there are lots of memories and  journal entries of “when Lord, when” or “why Lord why” or “help, Lord help.”

Funny now to think of it all.  I don’t how God carried us, but He did. Every day.  8030 days.  Sometimes we walked with Him. Sometimes He carried us in His arms while we were sleeping, or weeping, or too sick to walk.  Sometimes, He pulled us along,  His firm hand clamped around ours, as we kicked and screamed down the road He had determined. But He was there from the start in all the chaos, dreams, and questions. From the start He was planting life and hope and renewal. And as we went along He whispered…

“Trust Me.”

“Look at Me.”

“Expect Me to Change Things.”

“Believe for Good.”

I know folks married 30 – 50+ years are laughing at me.  In that world of marital staying power,  I am only a youngster.  But if you are under the 20 year mark, you need to know that God’s grace really is yours. It’s not a  pithy church statement. It is a divine fact, a gift, an investment.  He pours in to us what we cannot manufacture on our own. He never gets tired, frustrated or quits. We might, but Jesus doesn’t.

His grace is always available, and it comes to those who know they need it. Chuck and I have grieved over our hard-headedness and hard-heartedness. Why did we wait so long to humble ourselves before God and before each other in so many sticky places?

Our goal now is to shorten the recovery time.  After this many years, we are learning to bypass the manipulation by silence or anger or emotional explosions. We are more eager to get to the heart of the matter…. Really, the Heart of the matter. God’s heart. Chuck’s heart. My heart. “God what am I missing here?  I am committed to this person more than I am committed to being right, so give me grace to see what you see.”

Even in those times when one of us was more eager for health than the other, Grace happens. I have found that many times the only reason ONE person is still holding on, is because God’s grace is at work.  With so much marital collapse all around, we shy away from clinging to His grace and our vows.  Yet I believe it is a sure promise for those who desire to cross the finish line.

Truly, His Grace is all sufficient. For every need, He is there.

To save, not to condemn

IMG_0475The intersection of our social upheavals with Easter could not be more pertinent—more unsettling or perhaps even more hopeful?  I have considered both sides. I have listened to the barbs thrown at human beings from both political stances. And I keep coming back to some simple truths. Jesus came to save the world, not condemn it. There is no condemnation because of Christ. But—we are also not in charge.

Jesus came to restore us to the original intent of the Master Designer. He came that we would have true intimate fullness with God.  And in the same way that He came that Crucifixion day long ago, people rejected Him. They scorned His way, His blood, His promise. But He died and was raised again — anyway. Despite their protests to defend their sin, He shed His blood and was raised again to make them new creations, to give them more than they dreamed possible.

The same is true today. Despite our arrogant attempts at determining the “way things should be” and doing “what is right in our own eyes” there is a Holy Agenda being fulfilled.  It is hope and life open to all. There is just one hitch – we are not in charge. We can choose ultimate love, or not. We can have mercy and peace, or not. We can have all His provision and true satisfaction, or not. He always lets us choose life or death.

Yet it remains that God himself is the one who creates definition, truth and identity. The law doesn’t. The lobbyist with money doesn’t. The person with the most vehement Facebook posts doesn’t (regardless of the mathematical symbol). “In his image he created them male and female.”

I have had, and do have, homosexual friends. I also have friends who are addicts, liars, and gossips, and who cheat on their heterosexual spouses.  I love them all.  More importantly, God loves them all.

But this is not the sum total of who they are—or who they could be.  And He has a better plan than each of these counterfeit identities.  We don’t concede to our personal preferences, or even our supposed rights. We begin and end with God’s image. I used to think that sleeping with a guy to get love was “the way things work.” But then I met Real Love, and my preferences changed, my idea of Truth changed. My political stances changed. Mercy does that. Resurrection power does that.

Years ago, with the emergence of gay rights, the buzz from the medical field was not positive. They would say (and still do say) that anal sex is one of the most high risk sexual encounters ever. Why? Because this body part, the original intent of its design, is being distorted.
This is not brain surgery. Talk to a child about our great political issues: abortion, slavery, homosexuality. Killing babies, owning other humans and same sex couples do not add up to them. You don’t have to persuade them. It is simple math. I have taught thousands of middle and high schools students. I’ve seen the results over and over.

Tell them the bare facts: how abortion is performed, how slaves are forced by threat of death to trade their bodies for sex or labor, and how the human body is wired for sex, male and female, and they can come to simple revelations—

I was once a baby, I needed someone to allow me to be born.
Humans don’t own other humans, regardless of skin color, or value as a commodity.
Simple biological plumbing suggests that male and female coupling is in our DNA.

Is any of this popular? accepted? comfortable? No.
But I don’t make the rules. I also don’t set the standard for life to the full.

Just like the Roman empire did not, could not, dictate Jesus’s mission of love, neither can Apple, Amazon, or Starbucks defer ours. I heard two men from opposing sides use the phrase “embrace without endorsing.”  I can live with that. I can live with disagreement. What I can’t live with is trying to legalize same sex marriage to make it socially normal or right. The law of God is written on our hearts. The supreme court isn’t. There is a higher law we are to governed by.

How then shall we live?  With a heart of Christ that seeks to save, from a heart that loves the world without condemnation but with absolute resolve to stand with Him. There is a great line from the movie Mulan. The enemy Hun invader demanded the Emperor bow before him.  His response?  “No matter how much the wind howls, the mountain cannot bow.”

God is still on the throne, whether we like it or not. His heart is still for restoration and salvation, whether we receive it or not. The choice is ours, but the earth is His. We are His children, His creation after all. When it is all said and done, mercy triumphs over judgement.  We wait for the sons and daughers of God to be revealed.

A Culture of Cowardice

IMG_0487Sherri Turkle’s TED talk about  the disconnect through technology (“Connected but Alone”), really picked at some social norms that are poisoning us.  Right after that, a friend came over to have a “face to face” conversation because “My emails tend to make things worse,” she confessed. She just wanted to “see how her words landed.”

It was no big deal, no major issue to resolve. Well —  except that it was  heart thing. She had noticed her heart and my heart bouncing off each other and she wanted to clarify and comfort me.  Hmm, maybe it was a big deal.

Then Salem wrote a paper on the risk of relationships through technology;  she challenged that we are tempted to pretend to be human while  never actually experiencing true human connection.  Somewhere in here God gave me the phrase, “careless words.”  It triggered a scripture that has always scared me. “You will be held accountable for every careless word you utter.” Can you see that the Lord is talking a lot about this? In our on-going conversation the Lord is teaching,  “What does it mean to use our words with wisdom?”

The icing on the cake was  when I saw a message in writing that would never have been delivered in person.  Whether text, Facebook, or tweet, if the person delivering that message had to stand there and watch the physical, emotional and spiritual impact of  those words, I don’t think that person would have had the guts to say it. Bravado from a distance is a deception.

So I wonder — are we creating  a Culture of Cowardice?

Our so-called freedom of expression has, perhaps, unleashed a Jekyll and Hyde personality where we say unfiltered in text, Facebook and tweets, what we would never have the gall to speak face to face.  What makes us human is our gift of emotions, our ability to respond, to experience. And yet we shield ourselves from this experience by throwing verbal bombs via technology.

I love the exchange of ideas. I am, in fact, right now, communicating via technology. But as it comes to one on one relationships, human to human, heart to heart, are we taking thought of how our words hurt or heal? Does our smart phone make us emotionally stupid ? or reckless? Or worse, braver than we actually are?

Believe me, human interactions are dangerous. I accidentally hurt a friend recently. I watched her face cloud over, her body tense up and I heard her bitter, angry response.  I was so shell-shocked all I could I could say was, “That was not my heart.”  But the beauty of that moment was the humanity of it. It was real, ugly, and even scary. We may think it is better to hide behind our devices to avoid some of the relational fallout.  But here is the God factor.

Seeing her, experiencing her caused me to look at me, to look to God.  If all that happened via text, I probably wouldn’t have blinked an emotional eye. Instead, I have examined myself, gone before the Lord and I have prayed for my friend.  Her hurt was a wake up call. I am desperately reminded of how frail we are despite our tough personas. I am  immediately grateful that the Holy Spirit is here to comfort and to heal us both. Again and again, I am reminded how much we need to hear that we are Well Loved children of God.

Perhaps, this is our starting point in all communications, even the hard ones.  Am I speaking like a Well Loved Child of God? Is the other person being treated like a Well Loved Child?

How can we possibly do this? Only by the true and present Grace of God. He is teaching us to love.  “Words are powerful; take them seriously.”

34-37 “ It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.” Matthew 12 The Message

 

When New Life Arises

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I almost pulled up the plant last weekend out of disappointment. I  thought it was dead. After I put it  in the ground last fall, I expected it to be one of the first things to bloom this spring. Forsythias are budding all over town and yet mine was only woody sticks. But yesterday, though still looking “mostly dead” there is one small branch of yellow life.

It prompted me to go look at other plants and trees I thought were dead. Sure enough, tiny buds or slightest shades of green were pushing up from the ground or out of brown bark.  Just like the Lord said last week, “Spring is coming.” Hope indeed is pushing tender buds out of cold winter earth once more.

As I pulled dead stalks of  flowers and scraped away mulch and leaves where buds should be, the Lord prompted me to consider the difference between New Life and Life from the Dead.

We love to say that Easter is about New Life. (Don’t even get me started on the Easter Bunny.) But New Life is looking for growth where I planted bulbs last year, or hoping for a positive pregnancy test. That is, we look for new life to come from seed that we have planted.

But Life from the Dead is altogether different. Death leads to decay.  Dust to dust. No one goes to a cemetery and expects to see a living person. No one goes to ashes or corpses and expects flesh or breath. And here rises a much more powerful hope.

We love, and are loved by, the God of the Resurrection.  He is the One who brought life and breath back into the dear, mangled  body of Jesus.  This is the true miracle of Easter. There was no hope left hanging on the empty cross. But when God called His Son back to life, then True Life began. A life beyond the curse, a life full of  truly living hope became ours through Him.

Life after death. Life instead of death. Life over death.

When Jesus came out of that grave, it wasn’t just about forgiveness of sin. It was about the Life that is now possible to us. In us. Through us.

Jeremy Caris said in church yesterday that God’s principle of “what you sow you will reap” is an eternal spiritual law.  And God in His goodness and mercy, “sowed Jesus” on our behalf so that we might reap a life that  is far more than we dreamed possible.

It is a wondrous thing to consider the meaning of Resurrection Sunday. It is a life-changing thing to consider where does my hope come from? And what do I believe God can do in me? Bring New Life? or Life back from the Dead?

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