Long Time, No See

Moving. So many people do it. At one point, I lived 17 different places in 5 years, including in my car and on the streets. The best move I ever made was to move from Michigan to Missouri to marry the love of my life. My husband has basically move one time in his life, from California to Franklin County, Missouri. I've met many people (too many) in my lifetime who believe that God doesn't care about the little things, such as moving, only the big, life or death things. How foolish! How immature! How misunderstanding of God's design of the universe and the species and salvation! How shallow!

Here in the Midwest of America, we had an unusually harsh winter. It takes a lot to diminish the flea population, but this winter really put a dent in it. We also had a surge of international criminal activity in our neighborhood when cabin fever set in, so we decided that it's time to move. Actually, we prayed about what to do and God informed us that it's time to move on. This beautiful place where we live is no longer the place for us. It will be good for someone else. We've had temporary relief as the "bad guys" have changed up their activities so they no longer do it in our own back yard. Nevertheless, we need to obey God and go.

So it's been a journey for us. A very long, challenging, and at times exciting, and at times exhausting journey for us these past six months. At one point, I had a meltdown and realized I was doing God's will MY way. This realization changed everything! We all stopped, re-evaluated our methods and made the necessary changes to keep going. During this pause, I asked God if moving was even His will. When I looked to the Bible for my answers, knowing that it really does have ALL the answers if we look hard enough.

I read the story of Abraham and Sarah, Naomi and Ruth, Jacob and Esau, David and Saul, Mary and Joseph, Jesus and the disciples, the apostles, and on through the ages of history. Nearly everyone with a story worth mentioning MOVED! Their story wouldn't have happened if they hadn't MOVED. God's bigger plan would not have been accomplished and great nations of people would not have been established if no one MOVED. We didn't want to move, but we have to, and honestly, now we are very excited to see what great things the Lord has in store for us who obey and do things His way.

The story of Abram and Sarai convicted me. You see, God told Abram to leave his family and go to a land the Lord would show him. So Abram took his cousin Lot and his family. Eh hem. Did God not just tell him to leave his family? No, the reader did not misunderstand this directive. Abram really did disobey, and there were natural consequences attached to this choice.

Then there was the time when Abram, still doing God's will Abram's way, came upon a city and lied to the king saying his wife Sarai was really his sister. Well, that didn't turn out so swell either. The king nearly married Sarai before God had to send an angelic rescue.

And don't forget the time when God told Abram He would make a great nation from Abram's seed and his infertile geriatric wife.  Again, Abram did God's will his own way. Abram sent for his servant Hagar and conceived a male child with her instead. Boy, did that not go over well!

Abram, Abram, Abram... how often he tried to do God's will Abram's way! In every one of Abram's situations, God proved that He really does care about the details. He really does care about the journey to the destination and not just the destination itself. It's not just the life and death matters that He cares about, it's the details that build relationship with HIM. All the living between the beginning and the end is the stuff that makes the person, the story, the history, the relationship between God and man. By changing our location, God can build new relationships between me and the people He wants to reach. He can add another chapter to my story, increase my faith, change history, and do the same in the lives of my children and grandchildren just by moving us out of this neighborhood and on to a new place to call home.

We wander here on earth. We long for a place to call home. We search for a place and try with all our might. Some people spend more than they have and sacrifice everything they own just to put down roots. Our roots are searching. Sprawling out in search of soil. We have a void to fill. You can fill it with just about anything, but only Heaven will satisfy. Everything else is temporary. Are you trying to do God's will YOUR way? It won't work. He wants you to move. Maybe not from your physical house, but maybe He's asking you to move from your stuck spot. Or maybe He's asking you to do something and you've confused your way with His. You think it should happen one way, but if you abandon your own way, it might surprise you how differently things will work out. Get in tune by tuning out all the other "noise" in your life. You'll be amazed at what you can hear when you get quiet and stop to listen.

~~~~~~

I'd like to let my readers know that I had a delay in publishing my next book. It is in editing now and can take several weeks or a few months before we go to the next phase.  I assure you, it's well worth the wait!

Thanks for your patience!

~Lisa

Are You Misinterpreting Life?

Just wanted to share a thought with you all since it’s just one of those kinds of days (blustery, blizzard, sub-zero) and that’s what writers do on these kinds of days.

I get a daily email from Ransomed Heart Ministries (John and Stasi Eldredge) where they provide a reading excerpt from one of their books. Today’s excerpt says it perfectly! (See below.) It describes the change God made in me. My surrogate grandpa once asked me, not wanting an answer, “What makes you so different from the rest of the family?” It baffled him and he couldn’t imagine there being an answer he could grasp.  I wish I’d had this excerpt at the time, it would have been my reply. “The only thing more tragic than the tragedy that happens to us is the way we handle it.” THIS is one of the foremost important lessons I’ve learned in my entire life. It has made all the difference.  I put off the old set of questions that got me nowhere and put on the new kind of questions that came when I let my heart be humbled. THAT is the true fear of God. It’s more of a bizarre mix of a fear of who I am in light of who HE is, and resting peacefully in the thought that He can and will change me for the better rather than necessarily changing those around me. 

 

Please read the excerpt below from John Eldredge's Wild at Heart.

 

Most of Us Have Been Misinterpreting Life
Most of us have been misinterpreting life and what God is doing for a long time. "I think I'm just trying to get God to make my life work easier," a client of mine confessed, but he could have been speaking for most of us. We're asking the wrong questions. Most of us are asking, "God, why did you let this happen to me?" Or, "God, why won't you just ________" (fill in the blank—help me succeed, get my kids to straighten out, fix my marriage—you know what you've been whining about). But to enter into a journey of initiation with God requires a new set of questions: What are you trying to teach me here? What issues in my heart are you trying to raise through this? What is it you want me to see? What are you asking me to let go of? In truth, God has been trying to initiate you for a long time. What is in the way is how you've mishandled your wound and the life you've constructed as a result.   "Men are taught over and over when they are boys that a wound that hurts is shameful," notes Robert Bly in Iron John. Like a man who's broken his leg in a marathon, he finishes the race even if he has to crawl and he doesn't say a word about it. A man's not supposed to get hurt; he's certainly not supposed to let it really matter. We've seen too many movies where the good guy takes an arrow, just breaks it off, and keeps on fighting; or maybe he gets shot but is still able to leap across a canyon and get the bad guys. And so most men minimize their wound. King David (a guy who's hardly a pushover) didn't act like that at all. "I am poor and needy," he confessed openly, "and my heart is wounded within me" (Ps. 109:22).   Or perhaps they'll admit it happened, but deny it was a wound because they deserved it. Suck it up, as the saying goes. The only thing more tragic than the tragedy that happens to us is the way we handle it. (Wild at Heart , 104-6) Want more?
Get your copy of Wild at Heart today

 

The Heavens of Idolatry: Shedding the gods of Perfectionism

It’s coming! My next book is at the publisher being prepared for publication. I’m anticipating it to be out around April, but with publishing there’s really no telling how long it will take. It really is a fun and interesting process. My publisher this time is WestBow Press, a division of Thomas Nelson, one of the most respected names in Christian publishing.

Let me give you a tiny glimpse.  The title of this post is the title of the book. Here is the write up for the back cover.

So you say you’re not a perfectionist. Your idea of a perfectionist is someone who is well on their way to being perfect, and that does NOT describe you. Maybe you’re “just” a fixer, an overachiever, organizer, a people pleaser, or control freak. Perhaps you find yourself submerged in depression, workaholism, addiction, or failed relationships and career pursuits. Believe it or not, every one of these labels can describe a perfectionist. Perfectionism is so cleverly disguised by its symptoms and ripple effects, but the problem is the same at the heart – idolatry.

The Heavens of Idolatry challenges Christ followers to consider the possibility that other gods may have set up a throne in their heart. As believers we may find ourselves living to please these gods with our identity and worth hanging in the balance of acceptance. Or, being the diligent Christians that we are, we may have elevated ourselves by setting impossible standards for someone else. It is the striving and confusion which ensues that causes big problems in a person’s life.

Lisa Stough writes to fellow perfectionists as well as all Christians who are tired of hiding inside their Sunday clothes, who have given up on God all together, or who might be wondering what the big deal is about perfectionism. She brings Scripture, insight and personal experience together into a journey you can call your own.

 

Please stay tuned for new release specials!

The Hardest Thing Jesus Ever Did

I teach children of divorce about forgiveness. To demonstrate the burden and weight of unforgiveness, we put a sack of gravel in backpacks and have the children consider a time when they found it difficult to forgive someone or something in their life. When the children have something in mind, they are given a backpack of gravel and they have to carry it on their backs the rest of the session (about 1 ½ hours) and are not allowed to take it off. Throughout the session they consider various aspects about the load they bear. Sometimes it feels lighter.  Sometimes they find rest but the burden is still there. Some loads are heavier than others. And doing regular things is more difficult with this burden on their back; everything seems more labored than without it. They definitely feel weighed down by this baggage of unforgiveness.

Last night, we were teaching the kids this lesson when something very profound stood out to me. I recalled the tremendous offenses I have forgiven in my life and considered all that Christ forgave of me. I couldn’t think of a way to emphasize to the kids just how difficult forgiveness is and what all it involves. These kids won’t even fully realize the depth of injury some people have caused until they are adults and see the unforgiveness they still harbor handicapping their everyday lives. I wanted to assure the kids that Jesus knows it may be the hardest thing they’ll ever do. That’s when the Spirit shed a new light on the Truth.

Of all the persecution, heartache, fatigue, humanness, compassion, and teaching Jesus did, the very hardest, most grueling and excruciating experience He ever went through was FORGIVENESS. The forgiveness process required Him to accept the sins of every man and pay the price for each and every one, to bear the burden sinners should have carried. Forgiving others was by far the hardest thing Jesus ever did. The sins of others changed His life forever and the lives of everyone around Him. Every sin you can think of and then some impacted Jesus. He absorbed the impact of everyone else’s sins.  Then He made the incomprehensible decision to forgive!

Have you been impacted by someone else’s sins?  Have you bore the burden of unforgiveness when the offender was long gone and clueless of their impact in your life?  Is the weight of stones that have been hurled at you weighing you down and keeping you from living the life you’ve longed for?  We are not God. We can’t take on someone else’s sins in an attempt to save that person. We mustn’t try to hang onto offenses in hopes to somehow control the other person. What we can do however, is realize what the children of divorce are learning, that Jesus completely understands that forgiving is likely the hardest thing they’ll ever have to do, but it MUST be done if we are to experience the true freedom found in Christ alone.

The kids made a list last night of all the reasons why they need to forgive others. When they took off their backpacks, they placed them on the floor under the name “Jesus” written on the chalkboard. They were told to think about who or what they needed to forgive and some of the kids chose to say it aloud. Most of the kids who did said, “My dad,” and off came the baggage of unforgiveness at the feet of Jesus. How about you? Why do you need to forgive? Who do you need to forgive? It’s a process that begins with a decision. What will your forgiveness look like? Begin to catch the vision for it today!

A Closer Look at Cain and Abel

We all know the classic rendition from children’s literature.  Two brothers get in a fight and one kills the other and is punished by God, right?  Well, I’d like to protest that if this is the story you believe, then it’s not the same story that’s in the Bible.  The story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 lays the outline of our two heart attitude choices and merely uses the first two human births of all time to illustrate this.  Let me explain.

First Cain was born.  The first person ever to be born of a woman.  Adam and Eve had no nursery rhymes or legends to tell their sweet bundle of joy.  While I’m sure they sang to Cain and the animals offered plenty of entertainment, the stories they knew to be true all came from Eden.  We know Cain was well acquainted with The Garden (Genesis 4:16).  It was in plain view at the time, they just couldn’t go in it.  Imagine telling your toddler, “There’s the closest thing to heaven we’ll ever know and you can’t have it.”  Imagine the questions about God’s goodness Cain must have had swimming around in his formative mind! And the blame!  (E.g. “Why would You withhold something You know is good for me, Lord?  Haven’t we paid our penalty?  Can’t we come back now?  You’re just mean, God!  You just wanted to get rid of us not redeem us.  If You loved us, You would let us come back home.”) 

From the start Cain lived in God’s presence (again, see Gen. 4:16).  God was not a well-disguised secret.  We know Cain harbored bitterness and strife in his heart.  We don’t know what it was or why.  How much of that came from his parents, we’ll never know.  However, he had a choice of what he could do with those ideas and misconceptions and experiences.  We know it was a choice because of what we see in Able and what transpired between them.  Abel had the same parents and heard the same stories and he too saw Eden only from the outside with the fiery angels forbidding them to enter.  I don’t know about you, but my four year old boy is really into superheroes right now.  He flies around the house and off the couch in his undies and cape and swoops in to rescue his beloved big sister from his evil big brother.  He loves being the hero!  What must childhood have been like for Cain and Abel?  Do you suppose maybe they felt a little defeated knowing there were certain things no rescuer could accomplish?  Considering their options will help us all when considering our own.  All of our choices in life come down to the two choices Cain and Abel made. 

“So it came about in the course of time that Cain brought an offering to the Lord of the fruit of the ground” Gen. 4:3.  “In the course of time” could mean that eventually Cain got around to it, or it could mean that they didn’t make offerings at first but at some point they got the idea to do so. I will adhere to the former since God was sure to mention that Abel’s offering was from “the firstlings of his flock” but not Cain’s.  Cain probably waited until there was a surplus of vegetation in his garden and then gave God a portion. 

“Abel, on his part also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions.  And the Lord had regard for Abel and for his offering; but for Cain and for his offering He had no regard” vs. 4-5a.  Why?  For many years, I asked myself this question.  My husband and I observe the biblical feast days, one of which is the Feast of Firstfruits, which occurs on the Sunday during the Days of Unleavened Bread.  Firstfruits is when the Jews offer up the very first of their harvest.  No other harvest can be made until the first in the land has been offered up.  In the timeline of history, Firstfruits later became the day when God’s first and only Son was raised as our perfect atonement and only acceptable sacrifice thereafter.  Mainstream Christianity calls it Easter or Resurrection Sunday, losing the emphasis on the FIRST fruits.  God is all about taking FIRST place in our lives.  He doesn’t give us His leftovers and He doesn’t want ours! 

There is a chapter in my new book, which is still in the making, about faith in Hebrews 11:6, which says without faith it is impossible to please God.  In the same chapter, verse one, God says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”  Offering the FIRST of the fruits of our lives – money (i.e. tithe), time, labor, possessions, etc. – is an act of faith based on what we have yet to see.  Abraham offered Isaac by faith alone, faith in God, not in what he saw (his only son) but what he didn’t see (the promise of many nations).  Abraham didn’t wait for many children to come from his elderly wife before he made an offering.  Faith, anything done in faith, is what pleases God.  Without it, nothing else will please Him.

God was not pleased with Cain’s offering.  Cain’s offering “came about in the course of time.”  It wasn’t from the first of his harvest.  It was from the surplus.  Some have theorized that the problem God had with Cain’s offering was that it was produce and not livestock, not requiring blood.  In Mosaic Law, grain offerings and blood offerings served different purposes, but never was a grain (produce) offering used for atonement.  Not that the Law was instituted yet, but before Adam and Eve left Eden, a distinction was made (Genesis 3:7,21).  Part of the problem with how Cain brought his offering however, is that it’s ok to thank God by giving above and beyond according to our surplus, but it is not an act of faith at that point, merely a generous deed to show praise and gratitude.  It was as if Cain thought any old offering would do, as if he could just bring a hostess gift as he approached the Throne of the Creator of the Universe.  Proud, irreverent, ungrateful, distrusting, careless.  Maybe those adjectives fit Cain.  God knew Cain’s heart attitude was not right and that it needed to be dealt with.  He brought Cain face to face with his own heart and gave him another chance to deal with it.  God didn’t create a situation.  He knew in time Cain would make the mess for himself.  We know that, for whatever reason, Cain brought an offering.

The second part of verse 5 is where the heart problems become relational problems and get things rolling.  “So Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.  Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? And why has your countenance fallen?”  It’s not like God didn’t know the answer, but being the good counselor that He is, He wanted Cain to think about the answer to the question and sit with it in his own heart.  It wouldn’t have lost any meaning to say, “Why are you really angry?  What is the real reason for your anger?  It’s not really about your brother, is it?”  There are two separate questions posed, “Why are you angry?  And why has your countenance fallen?”  A fallen countenance makes me think of feelings of shame, hanging one’s head, tucking tail for something more than disappointment or feeling unable to look your victim or accuser in the eye.  I think the two questions God asked were to say 1) you’re not really mad at Abel, and 2) you’re ashamed of your heart attitude towards me; you’re embarrassed that I pointed it out by not accepting your offering (public humiliation).

Then God goes on to say, “Do well and your countenance will be lifted.  Don’t do well and sin will consume you.”  God didn’t say “Satan will consume you.”  Satan is an outside force.  Sin is an inside choice.  Also, God used the word “well” as in wellness as in things that make people well or a state of good health.  He didn’t say “do good” because again, that’s a superficial response, doing good things.  But “do well” implies making right choices out of a healthy, well place inside. 

You can walk around being angry at everyone around you who triggers your hurtful place with God so that you feel better for a moment, or you can choose to make healthy choices that will lift the burden of shame and regret from sin and offer an acceptable sacrifice to God.  God didn’t ridicule Cain’s offering so much as He shot straight to the heart of the problem.  Cain didn’t have faith.  He thought God was a harsh task master unworthy of his very best.  Abel believed in God’s deep down goodness, that God had a bigger plan than what they could see, that God was worthy of the first and quite trustworthy for the rest.  Cain harbored bitterness towards God and all these other things followed.  “Cain told Abel his brother.  And it came about when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother and killed him.”  It never was about Abel but Cain couldn’t kill God so he killed the trigger instead.** 

We all have a choice.  Will we make an acceptable offering of faith believing that God is good even when things around us don’t particularly look that way?  Or will we give to Him only when we see evidence that He has given to us?  The elders had to step into the floodwaters of the Jordan before the waters would dry up and they could cross.  The Israelites had to put the blood of the lamb on their doorposts before their deliverance.  Job was given an ultimatum to “curse God and die” or “hold fast your integrity.” How will you live?  Cain was given the choice, “Do well and your countenance will be lifted up.  Do not do well and sin is crouching at the door.”  What choice have you made?  Will you master sin or has sin become your master?

Adam and Eve lost their first two children to sin.  Cain went on to build a city because he was cursed at farming.  Sin did prevail in the land until Adam and Eve’s son Seth had Enosh.  “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord” (v. 26, emphasis mine). It took 235 years before people turned back to God.  Even then, society still went astray over the next several hundred years and God wished He’d never made humans.  One man’s choice.  One man’s bitterness.  It wasn’t just Eve to blame for sin in the world.  Cain proved it was every person’s choices after her even to this day.

 

 

 

** Notice, Abel was in right standing with God.  Do you wonder why the good people die and the bad people live?  Consider this: God is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.  The unrepentant can’t repent if they’re dead.  The repentant are saved, but the unrepentant are not.  They need to live so they CAN repent.  For the saved, “to live is Christ and to die is gain.”  For the unsaved, to die is to die eternally and God doesn’t wish that for anyone.

 

Super Man, Super God

My husband and I got to go on a date last night, just the two of us.  Our youngest boy just celebrated his birthday with a Superman themed party, and this week we’re going to Metropolis, IL, to see the giant statue of the man of steel.  So, on our date we saw the new movie Man of Steel.  The movie has too much violence for a child and uses the “F” word a handful of times, but there is no sex or innuendos and the story line is captivating.  My husband and I have been so wrapped up in our little world of parenting that we failed to see, hear, and read all the talk about the allegory of Jesus vs. Superman.  So we walked into this movie as unbiased jurors. 

In our declining world of relativism, this movie sticks with the original message that good can and will prevail over evil in the end.  It was every bit the story of Jesus told in a modern day film.  How refreshing to hear the basic truth that is so adamantly being destroyed by an obnoxious minority seeking to push a worldly agenda as their blood sacrifice to the gods of this age.  In college, I had a professor in the education department who was red in the face and virtually in tears speaking passionately against the existence of absolutes.  “There are no absolutes!!!!” he cried out from the cinder block walls.  My Christian friend, business man, and football linebacker stood up in the non-offensive stance of Superman and said, “Absolutely!!” and he sat back down having proven his point to the rest of the class but still not convincing the impassioned professor.   

In this movie, the Man of Steel embodies every Kryptonian who would ever live.  His father wove them into every cell of his son’s body before sending him to Earth as the only chance to save the only race worth saving.  He is given a heavenly name and an earthly name and spends his childhood wrestling with his identity in relation to his superhuman capabilities.  Like Jesus, his earthly father died before him and his mother after him.  How agonizing that must have been for Jesus to know he had the power to stop his father’s death but have to sit back and let nature run its course!  Like Jesus, his parents loved him as their own but knew from the beginning that he did not fully belong to them though he was as ordinary as ordinary could get since he showed up on earth as a baby.  At 12 years old, it was becoming more obvious to those around him that he was not “normal.”  The people of his time could not handle knowing they existed on earth with something larger than life.  Hello, Pharisees!

At one point in the movie, Kal-El (“from the house of El,” as in El-ohim?), aka Superman, says to the Army General, “You don’t like me because you can’t control me.  But just because I have more power than you doesn’t mean I’m your enemy.”  Doesn’t that capture the essence of our fear? It’s the idea that power that big can’t be trusted.  Something we can’t control can’t be trusted.  Hence a person’s fear of big dogs, for example.  Our confidence in our ability to control the outcome of a situation determines our level of fear about it.  A firefighter has a healthy respect for fire, but his job is to bring it under control.  However, the person being consumed by the flames is also consumed by fear. 

Think about it! I come back to the gun control debate for a brief comment.  Why is it that the President of the United States wants to take guns away from law abiding citizens who merely want to protect their homes and children while he gets to have his own house and family protected by heavy artillery?  This hypocrisy is born from fear, fear of the citizens he is supposed to serve, fear because he is outnumbered in pushing this unpopular agenda. Perhaps he thinks we are the enemy since he wants to make our power smaller than his.  Yet, all leaders, whether they like it or know it or not, serve God’s purpose.  All of us do.  It is not weapons we need to fear.  It is not the power of something bigger than us.  It is a bigger battle than that.  A strategy that is out of this world, and we know the end of the story.  I saw an argument against the allegory of Jesus vs. Superman “because Superman was violent and Jesus wasn’t.”  Granted, “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal” but they are mighty and my frequent visits to the books of prophesy and Revelation don’t exactly paint the picture of a Pacifist. Throwing merchants’ tables, breaking open the gates of Hell, destroying heaven and earth and making new ones.  Seriously, it’s all the work of a very impassioned God whose single minded goal is to claim the lives of those He loves so we can live for all eternity with Him and without fear.  Hell was not made for man.  Hell was made for one enemy only, but man is given the choice.  It takes a more powerful God to give a man a choice than it does to force His will upon a man.

One alien in the movie very surely told Kal-El, “Evolution always wins!” but of course it became obvious in the fight to save the human race or obliterate it that those who chose a life of freedom and truth and justice could not be explained away by evolution, that there was more to the code than what the enemy realized.  The captain of anarchy from the utopian planet of the motherland Krypton told Kal-El, “The problem with you is that you care about these people!  If you care so much about them then suffer with them!”  The power that is so big that people would fear it is the same power it took for a mighty God to suffer with the human race, the only race worth saving. 

Just because God is bigger and more powerful than anything we can control, doesn’t make Him our enemy.  Imagine if you could live fully surrendered to that power in your life.  You can never use it for your own gain.  It just doesn’t work that way.  You can only submit to its will in you for His purpose in your circumstances.  That’s some serious power unleashed, folks!!!  Do you feel powerless or helpless because of atrocities that have happened to you?  Sometimes even all at once?  The world loves Superman because he saves the day when the earth is threatened.  There is a Savior greater than any superhero and He will return to Earth. 

This Fourth of July weekend, my family will celebrate religious and political freedom in America.  But throughout the year, we also recognize our own liberation day.  Mine was October 18, 1992.  When was yours?  When did you begin your commitment to live in full surrender to true Freedom and Power found in Christ alone?

 

 

***By the way, I find it interesting that the comic book creators of Superman were two Jewish men who were oblivious to the messianic message that emerged from their own creation until people started seeing it for themselves. 

Checking In

Praise the Lord for all he has done and is doing in my life and in yours!  His mercy endures forever and for that I am eternally grateful.  It has been a long while since my last post, but any regular visitors know that this is not unusual for me to have gaps between posts.  I sure wish I could hear all the praise reports of what God has done in your lives since my last post.  I know it would be volumes if I were to write just my part of the story. 

One thing I can share with you is that the Lord has called me to write another book.  I will not yet disclose the title as it is not copyrighted yet (but the publisher and my husband think it's a "very awesome" title :-)).  Suffice it to say, this composition is an alarm to the seriousness of the trouble with perfectionism from a scriptural standpoint.  This book will take a little longer to write than Healing Letters took.  I wrote Healing Letters in 3 months.  This one requires much more research and caution in my studies.  I suspect it will take at least a year to get it to the publisher. 

This book project comes at a time when God is growing my faith.  I'm currently participating in Beth Moore's bible study called Believing God. In my 20 year walk with God, I have never experienced faith like I am now.  I hope to make a post on that subject soon.  Just before beginning this formal Bible study, I did my own study on Job.  I feel like the Believing God study is just the conclusion to that personal study. 

Well, I just wanted to drop in and touch base with my readers.  It's been a while and I felt like I owed an explanation.  May God bless you all!

Shalom!

Correction, it was 28!

My heart has gone out with the rest of America to the victims in the Connecticut shootings.  With all due respect, there is a very important neglect that I believe must be addressed.  I cannot remain silent any longer.

The media consistently perpetuates the unforgiveness of violent crimes, but do you play along with it?  I am referring to the death toll in Connecticut and any other murderous situations.  The official count was reported as 20 children and 6 adults.  What a loud declaration about the shooter and his mother!  With all due respect to the accounted victims, the last death in the murder spree was also the first death.  The last death was that of a man, Adam Lanza, whose heart died long before the shootings began.  Troubled though he was, he wasn't exactly born a killer.  IIPeter 2:19 reads, "...promising them freedom while they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by what a man is overcome, by this he is enslaved."

As a mother myself, I feel a personal pain for this man's mother, Nancy Lanza.  No, her child did not rise up and call her blessed.  But if that wasn't hurtful enough, despite her efforts at 20 years of parenting, she isn't even included in the death toll.  By their reports, the media mock her and spit on her grave as though this victim is the one who pulled the trigger. 

I'm not saying there are NO accurate reports.  Several sites have reported accurately.  Take this one for example:
The youngest victim had a twin at the school. The oldest was the school psychologist. Another was the child of a jazz saxophonist. Among the 28 who died in the shooting in Newtown, Conn., were six teachers -- all women -- and 20 children, ages 6 and 7.
The two others who died were the gunman and his mother.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/12/16/15930533-victims-in-connecticut-shooting-daring-principal-fun-loving-teacher-6-year-old-twin-brother?lite

My second bone to respectfully pick is with the  gun control debates sparked by the shootings.  Last I checked, it was a PERSON who took innocent lives, not a gun.  The gun was the means he chose to accomplish what was in his heart to do.  A gun sitting on a table can do nothing on its own.  It takes a murderous thought and a person to execute the thought.  We don't outlaw transportation or hospitals or butcher knives even though those are ways innocent lives are lost.  Why guns???  Adam Lanza had lost perspective.  He was a sinner like the rest of us.  He acted like a lost person, one without Jesus as his Savior.  If you don't like that, become part of the solution.  The biggest lie anyone can believe in all of this is that Satan does not exist, that it was the fault of one man alone. 

Read Ephesians 6, the whole chapter.  God says doing right by our parents is the first step in spiritual warfare.  It leads to doing right by God which leads to the enemy's defeat.  Yes, to help defeat violence in the world, we must begin in our own heart!

Our Constitutional right to bear arms must not be sacrificed in an attempt to reduce violence.  Our right to bear arms was written into the Constitution by our forefathers at the founding of our country with the understanding that we are a Christian people and must be allowed the right to defend ourselves against those who would use weapons of mass destruction to put us in bondage to godless dictators.  God did not take away our right to stand firm against enemy forces as seen in the spiritual weaponry of Ephesians 6.  Why should we use our time of weakness in grieving to willfully weaken ourselves even more?  Let's not throw reason out with the tragedy. 

"Resist the devil and he will flee from you."  I talk about how to do this in Healing Letters.  This weekend I was on my local Craigslist website posting something on the "free stuff" page.  I noticed several people there with high quality "free stuff" with the explanation that their offer was one of their "26 Acts of Kindness" in honor of the victims in Newtown, Connecticut.  My first thought, of course was, "Twenty six??  What about the other two?!"  But I also love the idea!  I'll make mine "28 Acts of Kindness!"  How do we defeat our very real adversary?  We defeat violence with kindness!  Have you ever tried to argue with someone who won't argue back?  Yeah, do that to our "adversary the devil who walks around as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" (1 Peter 5:8).  He hates it!

Lastly, to the friends and families, "After you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself perfect, confirm, strengthen and establish you" 5:10.  "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance" 2Peter 3:9. 

With love and prayers for all,
Lisa

His-story

I recently finished reading Joni Eareckson Tada's book A Lifetime of Wisdom: Embracing the way God heals you.  I'm going to buy up a dozen more copies to give away, it's THAT good.  For those of you who are unaware of Joni's plight, at 17 years of age, she was in a diving accident that left her quadriplegic the rest of her life.  She is now in her beautiful 60's and writes this book in retrospect over her 40 years of living in a wheelchair.  The book is laced with "rubies hard won," and her gleanings of wisdom she would never have were it not for her confinement.

I've been reading this as I have endured a mysterious medical condition.  Some days my face is paralyzed.  Some moments there's no pain at all, like right now.  The pain comes and goes throughout my whole body and the doctors concluded "There's nothing wrong with you."  I have my strong suspicions but the medical examinations have made it clear that it's up to me to figure it out.

A couple days ago, when I had a rare moment just to think, God did not specify a target when he asked, "Who is this about, Lisa?"  Have you ever experienced that, where God asks you a rhetorical question that preaches an entire 6 week sermon series straight to your heart in one statement?  Well, I put God's question up against all the major issues and situations on my plate lately and I found that I have mistakenly made these things about ME.  As I worked through each situation or issue, one truth became more and more evident that I want to share with you.

Like Joni, like myself, like you, we all have a story.  But most often, people think of it as their own story and that is just not the case.  Consider your mortality.  Your story means nothing if it's yours.  It will die with you and be buried in your grave.  What if it's not even really about you. If the story of your life is YOUR story then YOU are the main character and God is just a player.  It's all about you and how and why things happen are determined by your choices and your circumstances (over which you really have no control).  The story revolves around you.  But what if, instead of it being your story, it's God's story?  In God's story, HE is the main character and the cast of players all have a vital role in bringing HIS story together into one giant epic (see Epic by John Eldredge).  Each of us merely has a piece of the story and the story can't be told seamlessly without you to tell it like you know it.  We all have a part to contribute because God is always at work, and his story isn't finished being told even though the book is already written. 

My children enjoy the pick-your-own-ending books.  I introduced them to these books when they were struggling with understanding how their responses to people and situations actually make a difference.  The kids picked up on the concept quickly.  In God's story, the book is written and finished.  As the Casting Crowns song says, "To You my future is a memory." In God's story, there are many ways to get to the same conclusion. It just depends on what choices you make how He's going to get there. 

What does all this look like on a practical level?  God knows when I'm going to die.  I don't.  So why am I so worried about my mysterious pains?  Of course it's bothersome and disturbing, no doubt.  But I made the mistake of thinking everything about it was up to me and that God would hold it against me if I didn't get this thing under wraps.  I basically pushed God aside in my heart without realizing it, taking my destiny into my own hands.  I forgot that whether I live or die it is for His glory.  It also looks like patience.  When a friend who is struggling doesn't call me for a long time, I can respond with patience knowing that God is working in her and that any role I've ever had to in her life doesn't purchase my plot of real estate and entitlement in her heart.  She doesn't answer to me; she answers to God alone.  I am now patiently making myself available should God choose to use me in the same way or a new and different way.  It won't be my words of wisdom to her if God chooses to speak.  It's His story after all.  I would be more than slightly offended if someone came along and edited my journal.  Even the job of a book editor is never to change the voice of the author. I respect my friend's need for room to grow, for God to work, and I do so without meddling in other people's business as though I have the right to be there.  If we are in someone else's part of the story, it should only be because we were invited there.

In closing, my pastor's sermon Sunday was about God's/John's letter to the church at Ephesus (Rev. 2) which I found particularly convicting in light of the question God posed to me.  God tells that church that they have lost their first love.  Let's stop thinking from the loins for a minute and forget Eros love.  This church was serving God and doing great and wonderful things. They were commended for their work and perseverance and all they had endured. But the correction they received is that God was not their FIRST love anymore.  They loved service to Him more than God Himself.  They loved building and planning and helping people and solving spiritual problems and ministering to others.  They LOVED it!  That was great, but before they realized what had happened, they sidelined God.  This is basically what happened with me.  It happens to everyone who's a Christian long enough.  We can't possibly keep all things all right all the time. 

So be careful out there, friends.  It's a hard story to live and a glorifying story to tell.  Tell your piece of the story and thereby keep God's story seamless, without missing parts.  Watch for the unfolding of his-story in your life.

Running

It's been quite a long time since I posted.  My apologies to all my readers in near and far away lands.  It doesn't feel right to say "far away lands" when I'm sitting in my home at my computer being able to communicate with people in Latvia, Singapore, Great Britain, Thailand, and many other countries.  I praise God for how far his hand can reach.  It truly is amazing, don't you think?

Perhaps you'll be forgiving when you know that I've been in constant pain for over 2 months with a condition called Bell's Palsy.  It has been my experience that when people hear of Bell's Palsy, they either think of a close friend or family member who has suffered with it or else they have no idea what it is and start thumbing through the bulk of web pages on the subject to find out what it is and they still have questions.  So for those who are clueless like I was, I'll briefly explain.  Bell's Palsy is a weakening or paralysis usually in only one side of the face (but it can be both sides) due to a constriction to the facial nerve.  There are many known causes for the swelling in the face that leads to Bell's Palsy, but there are perhaps more unknown causes.  Even with a known cause, the diagnosis is more of a "pretty good guess."  My doctor's "pretty good guess" is that mine was caused by the shingles virus.  After all the tests, I think it's a pretty good guess too.

I have been SO blessed to only have the weakness in the muscles rather than complete paralysis.  I could not use the right side of my face, but neither did my face drop like many folks experience with it.  I can tell you this though, it has been an EXTREMELY painful experience!  Over the past couple weeks or so, the nerve has started to heal itself.  The healing has been nearly as disturbing as the condition itself.  The muscles around my eye vibrate sometimes for days on end and the muscle fatigues.  At one point, I got an ear infection that has healed but now has me wondering whether I'll ever hear well in my right ear again.  The nerve in my ear has begun to show signs of healing as it, too, has vibrated for many days as though a bug were fluttering around inside.  Like I said, it's been disturbing at times. 

All this began around the time I was preparing for a process called EMDR, Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing.  I want to encourage you to look up more about EMDR.  I've put a link in the sidebar to the EMDR Institute.  This procedure has had great success in treating veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and is now used for a wide variety of issues involving highly stressful situations such as sexual abuse, rape, repressed memories, and even current job situations.  The list goes on, but you get the idea.  I especially like this technique because it aims at dispelling the lies we acquire from our trauma and replaces it with Truth.  The trauma is not fully processed until the lies are sufficiently dispelled in the person's belief system.  EMDR is especially helpful when the client needs the added security of the safety offered by the EMDR process.  Also, let me make it clear that EMDR is not the cure all.  It is a means by which a client and counselor can consciously access and process repressed or known traumas.  But the therapy should continue after EMDR in order to gain the full benefits and avoid further trauma by leaving unprocessed information.

In considering my ongoing healing, I have asked myself on several occasions, especially now with Bell's Palsy, how serious am I about healing?  To me there are only two choices, to run towards healing or run away from it.  Then a friend posted on his blog that he has started running in the mornings and is conditioning for a 5K.  Interestingly, that was at the same time my husband started doing the same thing!  Also interesting is that our friend said the same things about running as I'd been thinking about healing.  He said we're always running.  Running towards something or running away from something.  And hopefully we are running to Christ and not away from Him.  So I have my answer to my question about pursuing healing knowing that it can cause serious health issues.  The way I see it is that I have to go through the pain to get to the healing.  Pain is temporary, but healing is eternal. 

2 Corinthians 4:17-18 (NASB) says

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The application I get from this is that I can't live my life in fear of what I see.  Until a few days ago, I saw a deformed face in the mirror, a face that didn't work and only caused pain.  I look at the timeline of my life and I see horrible abuses and circumstances speckled with a few good interruptions.  I've said on several occasions, "I hate my timeline!"  Many of you readers can say the same thing.  But what if I stop there?  What if I run away from it all with my bag full of bitterness and denial and pain and lies that are all rightfully mine?  Well, then my story doesn't stand a chance at redemption in this life.  So I have to choose healing.  I choose to run to the Healer who can take care of my Bell's Palsy or, if not my body, then He can choose to heal my heart about it and help me live with it.  (I do feel my body healing, however.  It just takes time.)  I choose to run to the Lover of my soul who wrote the Songs of Solomon with ME in mind.  I choose to run the path of healing.  I choose to press on towards Christ and away from self.  How can I run away from my selfish ways if I'm spending so much energy numbing and protecting my hurts just so I don't have to face them?  So I choose Jesus.  I am running the race that leads to life and an eternal perspective.  It's worth the temporary discomforts knowing that it brings God eternal glory.

How about you?  You are running.  The question is, what direction? 

Jesus Loves His Dysfunctional Family

So you think Jesus was so much better than you? In the sense that he saved the world, yes, he is better than you. But his family was no better than yours probably, and definitely not his lineage! Look at his geneology.... Rahab the prostitute, David the adultrous murderer, Ruth the gentile, and then his mother Mary who got pregnant during her betrothal. Many of us have a family tree that would make a nun blush, but those are often the most glorifying trees.

I am preparing for the Spring Holy Days coming up, starting with Passover April 6th. In my study time yesterday, I was reading in Luke 2:41-52, the account of Jesus' first Passover with the pilgrims in Jerusalem. He was 12 years old. Follow along with me and see if any of this sounds like your family.

Jesus goes with his family as this was a pilgrimage feast to Jerusalem (one of 3 pilgrimages throughout the year), although he may have been there before. This time however, "the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. But His parents were unaware of it, but supposed him to be in the caravan, and went a day's journey...."

Ok, so Jesus stays in Jerusalem. Why? Did he get lost or separated from the crowd? Did he make a new friend and spend too long playing kickball? Did he get distracted like 12 year old boys do and go back to the rally point at the temple where they had all been and expect that they would come looking for him where they last saw him? Perhaps he pulled out the "God card" and instantly knew how to get to the temple without being told. Maybe he never left the temple. Do you know a 12 year old boy? This would be a seventh grader in middle school bound for Oxford. Of course, all of these speculations are just that, but it does make you wonder what was going through Jesus' mind about staying in Jerusalem.

I think about Shawn Hornbeck who was in the national news when he was abducted at 11 years old and found 4 years later. He must have said to himself at some point, "I'm lost, but I'm right here. Nobody knows where I am except me. Will my parents come for me? Will they know where to find me?" When a child is lost, the search teams go to the most obvious places, the places the child is most likely to go to. What does the child like? Do they know how to get to so-and-so's place? Predators use things kids like to lure them in like puppies and kittens and candy. Everyone racks their brain for the child's interests, motives, and capabilities.

But look what happens when Jesus' parents find him. Remember, the caravan went ONE day's journey when they realized he was missing, but they took THREE days to find him. Ok, raise your hand if you've ever lost your child? (Mine is raised.) Not long ago, my husband and I lost our 2 year old son in Sam's Club. After 10 minutes of panic with an all-out Code Adam in search of Josiah, I collapsed in an aisle. The oxygen had left my muscles and traveled to my brain and I could not stand on my own two feet. It was so utterly terrifying! I knew Josiah was not playing a game after missing for that long. My first reaction was to look under the skids of product for his tiny feet because I knew he liked to hide and chase. When I exhausted Josiah's favorite spots, it was anybody's guess where he might be.

So Mary and Joseph were looking for their son for three days and they finally found him in the temple. Look at Mary's first words to her son in verse 48, "'Son, why have you treated us this way? Behold your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.'" First, they blamed him for their misery and their inconvenience with no regard to how their son might have felt being left alone for 3-4 days. It was all about them. "How could you do this to your dear sweet mother? Your father and I were worried sick about you!" I'm sure they truly were worried sick about him, but did they ever stop to think about what their son liked, or consider where his heart might take him or where he would go being lost in Jerusalem where they'd just spent the week at the feast? Did they ever stop to reflect on the night the angel visited to say Mary had conceived the Son of God? Did the thought cross their minds about the awesome power and provision of the mighty God they just worshiped for a solid week, and think that this same God might bring this miraculously conceived child into His house (the temple) for protection? NO!

Jesus asked these same things, "'Why is it that you were looking for me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father's house?'" Does his parents' response sounds like something you've experienced with your own? Jesus' very own parents, the two people who are supposed to know him better than anyone else in his life, had no clue what their son was asking. They were still thinking about their own hurt. I think Jesus was saying, "Mom, Dad, if you knew my heart, you would have thought to look here FIRST. If you really understood me and cared about the things I care about then you would have found me right away. You don't understand me or why I'm here or what my life is all about. You have no clue! Me, your son...."

Talk about rejection. Ouch! This 12 year old boy was so smart and amazing and all the adults learned from him in the temple those days he was "missing." Then his parents find him and they don't even see him for who he really is. They don't even care or ask about him. They only ask why he made them feel so awful while he was gone. I can imagine that Jesus just hanged his head and mumbled, "You don't know me. You just don't know me like I desperately want to be known." The cry of many a middle school boy's heart.

Twenty some years later, Mary and Joseph's boy would be back in Jerusalem for the Passover, unrecognizable as the glass shards ripped through his flesh like the cutting words of his own parents. This time, Jesus would not be leaving with the caravan and he would still feel the sting from those who didn't understand him, who never really knew him.

One last thing to see. Verse 50: Jesus' parents didn't understand his question. Verse 51a: "And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and he continued in subjection to them." After experiencing his first Passover in Jerusalem, missing the bus home, being left in the temple for 3-4 days without his parents, learning from the most respected scholars and priests, then having his heart broken by the scorn of those he loved and who were supposed to know him best, Jesus remained obedient to his parents (keeping with his sinless self), and "continued in subjection to them."

Don't expect perfection like this from your own children, but what if you practiced it as a child of God? How much selflessness would it take to be sinless? Are you a grown person still struggling with being nice to your parents? You have every right to be scornful towards them like Jesus whose parents scorned him. They didn't welcome him with an embrace of love and joy. He had every right to feel and act hurt. But he didn't! Could you act as mature as this 12 year old boy did?

Look at the result of Jesus' choice to not act on his hurt? "...And his mother treasured all these things in her heart" (v.51b). So she didn't understand what he meant at the temple or even what it meant that he was the Son of God. But she did speak the universal language of love that he showed her by stepping back in line and choosing forgiveness. Look ahead 20 years to the cross where this boy is now a man all bloodied and crucified by the ones who misunderstood him. He never waivered as a boy or a man as his dying words were, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," and by his death he spoke the universal language of love and forgiveness. Mothers for two millenia now have "treasured all these things in her heart."

A beautiful parallel was being painted between Jesus' first Passover and his last Passover. This friction between Jesus and his parents was a picture of the friction between God and His children. How much do we NOT understand God's love? Do you feel misunderstood by your parents? What choices have you made as a result of that hurt or desperate desire to be known? Is your focus on the cross or is it on yourself?

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

*Photo from Snopes.com

"Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then you also can do good who are accustomed to doing evil." ~Jeremiah 13:23

The dogs in this picture are being trained for police work. They are being trained to go against their natural instinct to gobble up this fuzzy Scooby Snack. Do you ever feel like that in the Christian life? Like you have been so ruined by doing bad things and experiencing bad things and being exposed to bad things that the only thing you know how to do is bad things? And going to church and listening to a sermon feels like someone is trying to "teach an old dog new tricks?" Well, listen up because this verse is hope for you!

Read it again. Sounds confusing, doesn't it? Talk it through. The Ethiopian cannot change the color of one's skin. God made him that way. The leopard cannot change its spots. God made it that way. Then you can do good, even though you have learned to do evil. God made you that way!! Praise the Lord!

In the adage, "You can't teach an old dog new tricks," the old dog is apparently set in his ways. These "old dogs" say things like, "It's just the way I am. I can't help it." For many, it's a cop-out. For many others, it really seems this way -- helpless. If you are in the first group, think twice about how far that attitude has gotten you. If you are in the second group, consider the photo. Humans hold a higher status than animals, especially dogs. Then why would it be that these intelligent but impulsive animals can be trained not to attack this very vulnerable cat, but you can't learn to change your ways of thinking or behaving?

Jeremiah tells you that you can change! The alcoholic can do a u-turn without a DWI. The angry mother can find calm. The porn addict can walk away from the electronics and into a thriving marriage. The codependent can confess the error of her ways and be loved all the more for her identity in Christ. Are you like me? Someone kindly pointed out to me one time the error of my thinking that I thought I could change but I didn't think my accusers could. Ok, so you believe God can teach an old dog new tricks and that you weren't just born the way you are. How does this change how you see others? Were they just born nasty and corrupt, or did they learn it and participate in it like you did until it became part of who they were as a person? According to God's words in Jeremiah, there is still hope for these people.

I truly believe that. There truly is hope for everyone to change for good, but good can only come from God. That is the way we are made. We were made for God's purpose and are capable of that single purpose just like leopard cannot change its spots. It is our CHOICE to do evil like it is our CHOICE to follow good.

Yes, you can even train a dog not to chase after a flirtatious cat.

Philippians 4:13

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."


Ok, not that long ago, I was wrestling with typical life stuff that always seems so unique to my own experience and God reminded of this verse. But it rubbed me the wrong way and even moreso the more I thought about it. I know God wanted me to claim the truth of this and find comfort in it, but I couldn't. My anxiety level increased the more I thought about it.

You see, here's the problem. I have the hardest job in the entire world, as do all of you. I have 3 beautiful, bouncing, balls of energy all day every day. They are 2 (and a half), (recently turned)5, and (almost) 7. I have the incredible obligation to educate this energy (no matter how non-traditional the style or method) all the while I'm feeding, transporting, and nurturing their spirits in between my own personal and spiritual growth and pursuits. I also have half a dozen other irons prodded deep in the fires of trials as well. And honestly, if you've read my book, you also might imagine what trials might also be involved with the daily task of undoing the past and keeping it removed from my present parenting.

Play your little mousy violin, but my problem with Philippians 4:13 was that I don't WANT to do ALL things! I merely want to do SOME things. And in fact, I just want to do THIS, whatever "this" is at a given moment of my day. The day I grappled with this verse, I couldn't take another minute of the weight of my burden. I felt crushed by it and overcome, which is why God picked this verse to speak to me. When I poured out my heart to Him, I said, "Lord, this verse is a burden more than a blessing. I don't want to do all things. I just need to know I can do this one thing that is more than I can handle. You said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Does that mean even this?"

The peace was restored before His reply, "Even this, Lisa."

"Oh, okay. I get it now Lord. I can do EVEN THIS through Christ who strengthens me!"

So how about you, Reader? What is the one thing you are sure God excluded from the "all" part of Philippians 4:13? What area or task or trial do you think He wasn't talking about? Of course, God was speaking in the realm of reality. In other words, He wasn't saying I can go out tomorrow and run a marathon or leap from amazing heights and not plumet to my death, or any other feat that defies the laws of nature. We're talking here about the healing process or the daily grind. The part of you that screams, "I just can't forgive him one more time!!!" The part of your process that says, "This is too hard!" or, "The darkness is too dark. I just can't see into it," or, "I can't let go or else I'll forget."

Look that "impossible" thing in the eye and say, "I can do EVEN THIS through Christ who strengthens me!" God has never told a lie.

Be angry and sin not.

God tells us in Ephesians 4:26-27 to "Be angry, and yet do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not give the devil an opportunity." Do you suppose the plight of marriages in America could have anything to do with the fact that Christians don't apply Scripture even when it really, REALLY hurts? The devil gets an opportunity in our relationships (friendship, social, business, marital, etc.) often times because we sin when we are angry.

Seeing that anger is a God-given emotion, I've been working on formulating a working definition of anger for many years. It has been an evolving definition and today I finally put it down in words, in the back of my Bible in fact. I won't give a long essay here, but will close with something for you to think about.

Destructive Anger = An out-of-control attempt/expression to regain control of an out-of-control situation.

Righteous Anger = A godly, emotional response to sin and its cohorts.

Redeemed! How I love to proclaim it...

It crept up on me, the memory that was always there… in parts. Something happened that night, something horrific and nightmarish, and I was about to find out. I sifted through the memories and the gaps, all that replayed in my waking and in my sleeping thoughts. Piece by piece it came back to me some 30 years later.

It involved some family members and their “friends.” One of those people gave me a gift of a 1/20 oz. gold coin a couple years later. Later in life, I realized it was quite likely stolen and quite likely a token of payment to keep me quiet or apologize. Either way, it was as hideous and despicable as the crime. Still, I hung onto it, never sure what to do with it and biding time in hopes that it would be worth something to me someday.

As the memory was coming to completion and I was processing it all in therapy, my church was campaigning for funds to expand their territory. They showed a photo timeline of how our church started 60 years ago as a small country church. Through years of outpouring of generosity, it came to be the megaplex that it is today and the place my heart calls home. I am forever grateful that because people sacrificed in some pretty amazing ways over the past 60 years, souls are being saved today and my kids can grow up knowing Jesus by the teaching provided in their classes and programs. We drive an hour to church each way and it is totally worth it! In reflecting on the giving of others to make my church home possible, I wanted to give something that would make my church a place to call home for another family 60 years from now.

I was so sad because my husband was losing his job and I’m a stay at home mom with no income and nothing to give financially. That’s when I got creative. I decided that my book sales and any photography sales for the last 3 months of 2011 would be given in whole to FBCA (my church).

Then I remembered the gold coin and what a terrible thing and terrible people it symbolized. I thought if I could use it to buy a new camera, I could take better pictures and sell the photos to make money for Jesus. So I lifted this idea to God in prayer. The conversation went something like this:

“How long will the camera last you, Lisa?”
“Five to ten years. But I can sell the pictures longer.”
“If you’re lucky. How much money do you have in your pocket to give?”
“None.”
“And how much is the gold coin worth?”
“I really have no idea if it’s even real.”
“Whether it is real or it isn’t, your story needs to be redeemed, Lisa! Redeem the coin. Give it to me and I can make it worth more than gold itself. I gave you back your memory about that fateful night to heal you and redeem that part of your life. Now redeem the worthless coin so I can make something good come out of it.”

So I did. I received a statement in the mail today on the church’s letterhead that said they sold the tiny coin for $78 on February 9, 2012. I will tuck this letter away in a private place and hold onto it in remembrance of the lifelong weight I carried with this coin and as a reminder of how God can redeem absolutely anything … and anyone!

Success by association

I have a personal policy not to use this weblog as a rant outlet, but rather to lift up the body of Christ and those who are searching for healing in general. For a month now, I have had a rant brewing and I could not allow myself to post my thoughts until I could turn it into something constructive, useful, and edifying. So here it goes....

At the end of every year, all the tabloids are riddled like shotgun spray with who they think were the most important people of the year. They search high and low and come up with the most obvious famous faces and say that those people had the biggest impact, the biggest story, broke the most records, fathered the most children out of wedlock, committed the most heinous crime, made the nastiest smear through the highest courts, and the list goes on. If there were a church listed in the seven churches in Revelations 2 for such a people, this one would surely fit into some level of Dante's Inferno.

But most people don't see it this way. In fact, it is because so many people love these juicy tabloids that they are still in business. Why is that!? It is because people, including some of you readers, don't like their life. They think their life is boring, meaningless, pointless, not nearly as eventful as the private lives of these public people must be. Or their life is anything but boring, meaningless, pointless, and uneventful. In fact, it may be downright chaotic and miserable, full of one daily crises after another and they just want to escape. Either way, it's a temporary fix to a much bigger problem. People want to feel successful. People want to associate with these people who seem to have it all together. The more juicy the information you have on someone to take to your next gossip session, the more popular you will be as your clique thinks you are something special for knowing the latest scoop. You want to be an insider because "insiders" are your idea of success.

And that's not even my real rant. The real rant is that I know of some REAL life stories that will rip your heart to the core. But no one wants to hear about those. In all the year-end stories of 2011, I never once heard (maybe you did) about all the tornado victims, the earthquake victims, the tsunami victims, the cancer victims, the orphaned children right here in America, the families of murder victims, the thousands of casualties of war, or the underground Christians of communist China which happens to be an economic superpower rising on the backs of slave labor and record smashing abortion rates, or the lives sacrificed at the Japanese nuclear plant, or the victims forever changed because a young man was sending his 12th text message while driving his father's truck. What about those lives?

I didn't see these make the headlines of most noble or honorable people. Yet, this is the stuff life is made of. This is the stuff God sent prophets to warn us about, and his own Son said to watch for these things and know that each day draws us one day closer to his return. I know that I just lost somebody when I injected Christ into the equation just now. That's the switch you were programmed with when you entered the Matrix, right? Wrong.

When I first accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior, I was working with the director of a mentoring program. I wanted to flee my old life and old self, but I had no idea how to do that because I didn't know who I was or what a different life looked like. When I looked at my friend, I found myself wanting to be like her. She was the ideal person in my mind -- helping others, reaching out to those in need or crisis, loving on at-risk kids, meeting people in their darkest times and greatest needs, feeding and clothing the poor, while she had a picture-perfect family with Godly children. It's no wonder we love to read about people like this woman. It's who we want to be ourselves, so we get as close to them as we can, perhaps even smoother these people, and hope others will think we are just like them. Maybe if we hang out with the popular people we will become one of the popular people. If we dress like them or perform the same acts as them, we will become one of them. We grieve for the loss of someone famous because the closer we are to someone, the more we feel the weight of grief; therefore we must have known them well because we go so far as to feel this perceived weight.

Now, I'd like to apologize at this point if what I have said sounds cynical in any way. It really is a true phenomenon that we can choose to admit or deny its existence. Either way, it happens. I've confessed my case in point just to get your introspection started.

Moving on to what should be the climax of this post. I was talking with a new believer who was contemplating this thing we call "free will." He was sorting through the possibility that maybe we don't have as much free will as we think we do because the God we serve knows everything past, present and future. And doesn't God get his way with people anyway, despite our free will? I understand it best this way: When I choose to follow Christ, I choose to follow HIS will and NOT my own. What's so wrong with God getting his way and me not getting my way? Isn't that how it's supposed to be??? There can only be one master.

Instead of borrowing someone else's fame or success by affiliating with their reputation and that which makes them successful, what if we solely endeavored to put our hope and success in Christ? Think about it. I wanted to change my life so I planned to be just like my friend and imitate her until we were one and the same person. I would be a perfect successor to her position when her retirement came. But what changed that for me? My salvation. When God spoke to my heart and said, "What's wrong with being like ME? Imitate me and my thoughts and actions and humanitarian aid and my counsel and hope and compassion, and thereby become like me so that those who see your good works will glorify ME." He's GOD, folks! He has the right to say these things. No one else has that privilege.

I had the ultimate example of who I wanted to be standing right in front of me. It wasn't a shining example in my community, but Christ Himself. I am called to emulate HIM. It's not the faces that smudge in ink on the newsprint at the end of the year, but the one who has stood the test of time and beyond. Study the pictures of Christ painted in the Old Testament. See his fulfillment lived out in the New Testament. Listen carefully to his words and effectiveness and learn at the feet of Jesus. The Proverbs instruct on how to seek God's wisdom and he promises to give it freely to those who diligently seek it. Seek the Lord. Love the Lord with all your heart, soul and mind. Why is love the greatest command? Because God is (agape) Love. And love is the tie that binds us to this world and the next. Where is the love in the tabloids? The love is in these real life situations that call us to repentance and relationship and the realization that we are all in this boat together. No divorce from each other or divorce from human suffering of any kind can separate us from the love of God or our obligation to show his love to others.

This post is really a call to be successful. Find your success by associating with Jesus. Take your relationship to a new level. Go ahead and tie the knot, if you will! No one is making you do something you don't want to do. You have the free will to surrender your will to do his will that is so much better than your own. You may not gain fame and fortune in this life or get your name and face smudged in ink, but when your heavenly Father looks at you, he will see the covering of the blood of Christ and say, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant."