Seeds, Sprouts and Vines of Doubt

Over the last couple of days I have been having a hard time... I am not sure what triggered it, but I am begining to have my eyes opened to where it is coming from. So here goes one of the honest confessions of an imperfect pastor's wife.

I think that throughout my adult life I have been tucking somethings away in my heart and without really noticing I let these seeds sprout into a vine that is entangling my mind. For years now I have been pushing it down trying to keep myself under control, but these vines of distrust, fear and doubt have grown so big that any little disturbance and they are out of control, causing sleepless nights, irrational thinking and stomach aches. This has been one of those weeks when I am unstable.

Years ago when I married a man called to church work I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into, don't get me wrong, I would do it all again in a heart beat, I just wasn't prepared for the heartache that was to come. I was very young in my own faith, I didn't ever have anyone disciple me, and I did not even really know anyone in the ministry, especially not a girl. I have felt like I have been charting my own course, like a pioneer, from the very beginning of this journey. As early as the very first church that we served in at the young age of 20, we have seen youth's lives changed, students grow into adults who serve God, kids called to the ministry and have been blessed beyond measure to see God do amazing things in our lives and the lives of others. This continued through out the last 10 years as our ministry has been our life. But on the flip side of that we have experienced nice Christian people turn on us, stab us in the back and hurt us deeply in every church we have served in. Please know that I in no way think we are victims or that we are without blame in these situations, I know that we were at many times impatient, less than gentle and prideful. My husband is a painfully honest, passionate man who has only recently learned tack and diplomacy,and with his personality and conviction will always come conflict to some degree. And I don't blame him either, I don't blame anyone it is just life. All I am saying is that every time a church reacted negatively to us, another seed was planted in my heart or a huge pile of fertilizer was poured on the seeds that were already there. We have been a part of 7 churches in the last 10 years, which means we have packed up all we own and moved that many times, left friends that many times, wondered what God was doing that many times and started over that many times. More instances than not the decision to move was not in the best circumstances and well, let's just say we don't go back to visit! The amazing thing is that every time God has worked in all things for our good, just like He promised He would. The bad thing is that even though I trust God to keep doing that, I don't trust people to give Him much to work with. Let me give you a few examples of how crazy these vines have made me; my husband got the opportunity to preach Sunday night and he was presenting to the church some exciting changes that are coming in the youth ministry, sounds easy enough, but the whole time I was thinking about how someone could take what he is saying the wrong way or twist it and it will just be a matter of time before we are packing again. Irrational I know, the awesome people at our church love us and support us like none ever before, and have given me no reason not to trust them, it is just those stupid vines of distrust that I cannot seem to weed out. I have also become aware this week that I am terrible at making friends, real friends that I know and trust enough to let them know me. I am great at making acquaintances and hanging out with people, but I have a hard time with anything more. And when I do start to get close to some one it always comes with worry and fear. Worry that for some random reason they will change their mind about me, or worse throw me to the wolves. Now these people I am spending time with had nothing to do with my bad experiences and have never done anything other than be kind and friendly to me, it is again the vines, this time the vine of fear! I complicate every thing by thinking the worst possible scenario is unfolding, I stay up at night praying about problems that I invented and I end up giving up on friendships because I know that one day they will end anyway. I am crazy!

The most frustrating and infuriating thing about all of it is that I know what I would tell some one else if they came to me with similar problems. I would say read 1Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." Romans 8:15, "For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." Or maybe 1 Peter 3:14,"But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed. "Do not fear what they fear ; do not be frightened." I would say read Philippians 4:7, Psalms 22, 1 Corinthians 13 or any number of other verses that I would instantly think to share. I know the answers, but for some reason I am only cool enough to talk about the solution not really implement it in my own heart. And that drives me crazy, making me feel like a hypocrite! How is it that I think I can help teenagers with fear or distrust or doubts when I have let the vines of those things take over in my life? I think that I should be past all of these kinds of problems, I should practice what I preach and give it all to God and move forward. I just don't know how I guess, that is a weak excuse at best, but seems to be all I can come up with.

I have however, discovered something else this week: I am prideful and I want to be able to weed my heart by myself but judging from the condition of things I am an awful gardener. I have got to take me out of the equation and just give it all to God. And to be honest, I do not even really know how to do that, except ask Him to show me the way. This process of God pulling the nasty vines out of my heart is not going to be easy or quick, there are many layers to work through before the soil of my heart will be free of weeds. I do have confidence that eventually the holes that remains after the weeds are gone will be loose and ready for God to plant His peace in. "I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me." (John 15:1-4) I want so much to remain in Jesus and in His thought and attitudes, allowing Him to be the gardener of my life, pruning these poisonous vines out of my heart and mind so I can be all He wants me to be. Please pray for surrender and humility for me as I learn to let God do His job.

Sir Alfred Titus the Great

Meet my new shadow, er, I mean puppy Sir Alfred Titus the Great, or Alphie for short. He is a 7 week old long haired wienie dog. My dear, sweet husband decided the girls needed a little inside dog to dote on and I needed something else to clean up after so Alphie met both of those criteria, haha. He is pretty cute, but I am just not a big dog person, or a clean up pee in the house person, for that matter. I am hoping that Tommy is right and he will grow up to be a sweet member of the family. :)

Today was the first day since we got him that the big girls, who are old enough to watch him pretty good, had to go to school; it's just Raegan, the puppy and I. Mondays are when I try to get most of the laundry and some house cleaning done around the house, and today is no exception. As I started working on everything I realized we may have misnamed the puppy, instead of the name that is bigger than he is, it might have been more fitting to name him shadow. Not because he is dark colored, but because he is right behind or under me all around the house. I have to watch where I step so I don't squish the little guy, since he is right in the middle of whatever I am working on.

Sir Alphie loves me already and wants to be close to me. And that is exactly how we should be with God. Whatever God is doing should be so interesting to me that I want to be right in the middle of it. And this will be the safest and most fulfilling place for me to be. If the puppy is right behind me, I know that he is not lost in a giant laundry mountain and that Raegan is not carrying him around by his neck. Alphie also gets a lot more attention when he is under foot, he is always right there, which give me the opportunity to bend down and scoop him up, or pet him. Psalms 91:4a says, "He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge." For a chick to be under his mother's wing he has to be very close beside and that is just the picture this scripture is portraying. God wants us close by; with him all the time. Sometimes it is hard to believe God is close by, life gets crazy and we get distracted and start to wander off. But the Bible says," Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded." (James 4:8) He desires to have us near him, following at His feet like little puppies, because He loves us and wants to show us what's best for us. Alphie has inspired me to try to walk so close to God that He wants to change MY name to shadow.

Power of Peace

Last night I had the honor of teaching our youth during the Wednesday Night Bible Study. Tommy hurt himself Tuesday night in a crazy little fall (that is a whole other post haha) and his neck was so sore Wednesday morning that he didn't feel good about teaching, so first thing he said when he woke up was, "Can you teach about peace and patience tonight?" Over the last few weeks we have started to dig into the Fruit of the Spirit and peace and patience was on the menu for this week. Through out the course of what is usually my busiest day of the week anyway, I had to pray for direction, do research, dissect some Greek, and put all that together into something I hoped would be helpful to the students. I was a little overwhelming, I am used to teaching small groups, usually of girls, but a room full of 50+ faces starring at me was unnerving!

Anyway as I was looking into all the scripture referring to peace something occurred to me; the peace of God, that kind that surpassing all understanding, can have amazing power in our lives! Peace is defined by Websters as freedom of the mind from annoyance, distraction, anxiety or obsession. All that stuff that we worry about steals our peace, when we care what others think about us it steals our peace, when we are obsessed or get distracted with anything it steals our peace. Now I know it is hard to keep all of that stuff out of our minds and hold tight to the peace of God, but the good thing is that God's Spirit wants to help us to focus on Christ and His sufficiency, which will in turn push our anxiety out and pour the peace in. When we remember that Jesus is enough and in Him we can be all He made us to be, the distractions shrink in comparison. And here is where the power of that peace gets even more amazing; when we are free from anxiety, distractions, obsessions, and annoyances we can live way bigger. We can go all out and be crazy for God because we know that when God is in something it is going to be awesome. It may not make sense or look normal, but living the way God wants us to is the most exciting, unpredictable, fulfilling life possible, and with out the peace of God filling our hearts we will be too scared or distracted to get it done. After discovering all this yesterday I am praying for more and more peace in my life so God can do something completely disproportional to anything this little girl could do alone!

Blue Moldy Banana

Over the last couple of days the cleaning closet that houses my trashcan has been a little, OK a lot, stinkier than usual. I have made Tommy take the trash out several times, whether it was full or not, and still the stink remained. I doused the closet and kitchen in Febreeze, but the stink remained. I kind of thought maybe the cat food got too moist from the humidity and that was causing the stench. But this morning it was too much to handle so I had to do some further investigation. I pulled the trash can and the cat food tub out and to my nose's dismay I found the source of the odor. At first I could not even identify the object for the gross blue mold all over it. But as I quickly scooped it up to dispose of it I realized it was a banana. I guess one of the girls, or a man who lives here, missed the trashcan and it landed in the corner of the closet. It was so wrinkly and disfigured and NASTY!! And the source of the smell taking over my kitchen.

I disposed of the banana, Febreezed the dog out of the closet and now my kitchen it back to normal!

The banana is such a little thing, for such a big stink. That is a lot like those "little" sins that we have in our lives, they can really cause a big stink in our hearts. I think sometimes we don't even know what is causing the problem. It could be anger we are holding on to, or selfishness, or pride or ignoring God when He asks us to do something for some one else. Or maybe even those little "white" lies we tell ourselves or others. Any of these things can be hiding in our hearts causing a stink, not allow God to have full reign in our lives. We need to be very thorough in searching our hearts and minds for little stinky sins that are hiding behind the trashcan or in the corner or our lives. You can get rid of everything else or even try to cover it up with church or staying busy, but if the problem is still there you will still smell it! Ask God to help you identify and blue moldy bananas that might be stinking up your heart and then throw them out!!

Bombs and Legacies

Last week Tommy, Raegan and I went to town to run church errands, this is pretty normal activity for us; we have to drive the 20 minutes to "town" at least once a week. Well last week we went to a bookstore we had never been to before in a part of town that we rarely visit. Not that it is a bad part of town or anything there is just not much over there that we need. Anyway right across the street from the bookstore there was a lot of activity buzzing around. There were police cars, news crews, fire trucks, an ambulance, and the whole area was roped off with caution tape. We were interested in what was happening, but we could not really tell what was going on. We proceeded to go into the bookstore and look around for about 20 minutes, and we found nothing we needed. Then when we were leaving the activity across the street heightened, people were running around and closing in on some one or something. We still couldn't see enough to know what was going on and we were finished over there so we left to continue with the errands at hand. Not till later that night did we see on the news, which we rarely ever watch, that there had been a bomb in a mail drop box, in thatparking lot. It was one of several that have been found in East Texas in the last few weeks. I don't think any of them actually blew up, thanks to the careful attention of the law enforcement, but the results could have easily been so terribly different. And 3/5 of my family could have been seriously injured, or worse.

Later that same day I was talking to some one at church and they were telling me about a family member that had been killed in a car wreck last summer. He was in there house talking one minute and the very next he was driving down a wet street when another driver hit a slick spot and slid into him. He was killed instantly. I know that is not what you want to read about on a Tuesday morning or any morning for that matter, but all this got me thinking about death as morbid as that sounds. I am not scared of dying, not scared of the afterlife, and not even scared of the possible pain involved. I have all those covered, actually Jesus has that covered and all I did was accept His gift. The only thing that scares me about dying is that my life will be over, my opportunities past, my song sung. And that will only leave my legacy. Websters defines legacy as, "a gift by will especially of money or other personal property." I doubt I am going to have any money to leave behind or even property for that matter, but I do have the love of God that I can share. I have minutes and days that I can invest in people, and I have gifts that God has given me that I can use for the good of others. If I use all this to the best of my ability for God's glory and people's benefit everyday that God gives me, then I know that I am leaving a legacy that lasts; a legacy more valuable than money, which can be used up, or property that gets old. And the awesome thing is that this kind of legacy will last for ever and ever. As I invest in people's lives, they will in turn invest in some one and then that person in some one else and on and on.

Life is fragile and unpredictable and sometimes unfair; my time on Earth could come to an end anytime, today or in 70 years. There is no way to know! But one thing we can know is that we are not living our lives in vain, wasting our breath and energy on junk that is not going to last, instead we are giving it all we have and our legacies will last forever!

Jesus said "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." (Matthew 6:19-20)

April Showers Exist?!?

I LOVE SPRING!! Spring is such a great time of year, and having just moved to East Texas, this Spring is especially fun! In West Texas Spring is usually skipped over, or blown away. It is actually springy here, there are sweet smelling plants, wildflowers, trees with blossoms and pollen. I knew what pollen was before, I learned about it is 4th grade science, but I have never seen pollen that covers the cars, the ground and even dyes the puddles yellow, so weird!

Another amazing thing about Spring in East Texas are April showers. I have always heard that "April showers bring May flowers," but yesterday we had a real April shower! It was so nice, so nasty wind, no tornado warning, no bad weather, my girls got to splash around in it! After the rain shower passed, we enjoyed jumping in the puddles and the sun even came back out! The rain cleaned things up around here, the pollen that was covering everything was washed off and all the plants seemed to be greener. It was very refreshing and the air smelled fantastic afterwards!

I think God sends Spring for a reason, a reason greater than it just being that time of year. He sends Spring to remind us that no matter what is going on He can refresh us. I do not like Winter, I hate being cold, I hate having to stay inside, I hate cabin fever; Winter is just not my thing. There have been times in my life that seem like Winter, lonely times, cold scary times, windy confusing times. But God says in Jeremiah 31:25 "I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." God never intended for us to go through the tough, trying, seemingly impossible times alone, He wants to walk with us all the way. He will refresh us like an April shower refreshes the Earth, He will satisfy us so we can keep going. I cannot tell you how many times, God has sent someone or something to breath fresh air into my life just when I was about to faint. "You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance." Psalms 68:9 And after the rain comes the flowers and fruit. I have experienced that after the winters of life and after the refreshment that God sends, my life is more fruitful. It is not always easier, but I have learned things that help me live my life more like God desires.

I am so thankful for the Spring and even more thankful for God sending refreshing showers just when I need them anytime of year, so that the fruit of His Spirit can grow in my life.

Leaves of Gold

About 11 years ago, before Tommy and I were married, we went on a mission trip with his home church to El Paso. We stayed in a house that was owned by the church, I think, and in that house was an interesting collection of old books. One that I was particularly fond of was "Leaves of Gold" which was a collection on poems and sayings first published in 1938. Tommy and I enjoyed randomly opening that book through out the week and reading out of it. One poem really struck me, so much so that I remember part of it, I was called "Sermons We See". It starts like this, "I'd rather see a sermon than hear one any day, I'd rather one should walk with me than merely show the way..." It is much longer but those short lines sum it up.

As we go about living our lives trying to love Jesus and bring others to Him, it is our actions people see more than hearing our words. This poem is an echo of a theme that is in the Bible, in James 2:14-17 it says, What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." We can talk the talk all day long and bless people with our words and wish them well, but if our hands and feet are not doing the blessing and the loving and the work, then our mouths are useless!! Paul even goes a step further in Corinthians 11:1 where he says, "Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ." That is a HUGE request, he is asking the people he is writing to follow him as he follows God. Wow!! Everywhere we go people are watching us and learning from us and drawing conclusions about the God we serve based on us. Am I living my life in a way that it would benefit people to follow me as I follow Christ? That is a great responsibility, but as God's people that is what how we need to live our lives!

Tommy later bought me my own copy of "Leaves of Gold" so I can pull it off the shelf and read the whole poem. And remind myself that as I go about my normal every day living my husband, my girls, my family, the youth of this community, people I don' even know are waiting for me to live a sermon! Because there is no denying that the last line of the poem is true; "There's no misunderstanding how you act and how you live."

Sermons We See- Edgar A Guest. Copyright 1926

Baked Crayons

This weekend I had a little bit of extra time with my girls, which I love, love, love!! So we decided to do some fun crafts. As I was digging around in the craft tubs looking for supplies I found tons of broken, half used, old crayons and I figured we might as well find something useful to do with them. I collected all the old crayons I could find and when the girls got home from school we went outside and peeled the paper off all of them. This took quite a while and was a little messy ( I think I still have crayon under my fingernails), but we got that done so we could move on to the more exciting part. We broke the crayons into little pieces and placed them in muffin pans then put them in the oven. After a few minutes we had liquid crayons, which was pretty neat looking. These had to cool, then we popped them out and had brand new, multi-hued crayon muffins.

I might be weird, but everything is a teachable moment for me, all the time I see things and think of what I could learn from it or how I could use that to teach someone else. Crayon muffins are no different. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says," Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!" Before we let Jesus into our lives we are just like those cruddy, broken crayons; not much use to anyone. But when we accept Jesus's love and forgiveness he starts to work on us. He will probably have to peel some junk out of our lives, junk like hatred, doubt, selfishness, things that were in our hearts, blocking Jesus from having full access. This is messy work, but God wants what is best for us so He is willing to stick with us through this process, no matter how long it takes. After this the real transformation begins, Jesus is working in you to make you a new creation, some one useful and cool! These changes can be brought about in many different ways, but it often takes some hard decisions, uncomfortable situations and maybe even something very difficult. I don't think God necessarily cause hardship, life is just hard, but He will use ANYTHING to bring you closer to being who He created you to be. These kinds of things are like the crayons getting broken and stuck in the hot oven. The crayons may not have appreciated what we were doing to them, but we knew the end result; the useful, beautiful final product! There have been times in my life when I did not appreciate what God was doing in me or what was happening around me, but after I see the results I am always so thankful that God cares enough about me to teach me and shape me into someone more useful! Being a follower of Jesus is not easy and becoming a new creation is not an over night transformation, but in the end it is all going be so worth it.

We can choose to be broken crayons floating around in a craft tub of life, never to have a purpose, or we can choose to let Jesus make us something new, something He actually wanted us to be all along, no matter what that entails.

PS. The first picture is our brand new, fun crayon muffins, and the second is the scuffed, broken crayons we started with.