God's will vs. Free will

Raise your hand if you were one of those people who always seemed to have a fresh pot of drama brewing in your life kitchen.

Yup. Me too.

It never failed. Somebody was always pissing me off, being unfair, attacking me or somebody I love. I was always fighting something. Always.

I am close to people who have this same phenomenon. It's like the storm of negativity just rages on and on like the hurricanes on Jupiter. Hundreds of years of storms. Or what one woman said to me, "I feel like I've been walking a desert for years." Or another, "God is obviously out to lunch again."

Where is God during these times?

Last night I was talking to a very close friend about this. My heart hurts for my friends who seem to find nothing but adversity. Even during my darkest moments I could feel the Lord's presence and knew he was there, which is probably what saved my life honestly. But I know that I have friends who try and can't feel him. Why is that? It bothered me a great deal, and I needed to discuss it.

What my friend said to me was a reminder to me that there are two wills in our lives - God's will and our own. He gives us free will to choose what we want to do. All He can do is guide us, but we have to listen and trust that He knows what He is doing. My next questions was, "Then how can I pray for my friends? If I can't pray that God will help them do X, Y, or Z - what do I say?"

After some discussion, we concluded that God hears our prayers - not matter what they are, but that He can't help somebody who doesn't want help to move toward what His will is for that person. Our job as Prayer Warriors is to tell God we've got his back and that we would LOVE it if He would speak to our friends and family about His will for them. Some don't want to hear it. Some can't hear it because they're too distracted by their own will (this was me for months this year). Ask God to show you how you can help your friends and family see what His will is for them. You know you're open to hearing from Him, and maybe they can't hear Him but can hear you. What can you do to be a warrior?

So this morning I opened my devotion book that led me to James 4:13-15. God speaks so clearly to me sometimes . . .

13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

He clearly has a message He wanted delivered to me, and when those messages get delivered - He knows I share them. Somebody out there needs this today.

I say this, friends - you know what YOU want. How is wanting whatever it is making you feel? I know, in my case, wanting to attend counseling with my husband made me miserable because my want was met with a wall of a big fat NO. The funny thing is that when I submitted to what God wanted for me, the change was uncomfortable (ok, it was excruciatingly painful) - BUT what emerges in His will will not only be blessed by Him but will make us undeniably happy. I'm seeing this more and more every day.

Am I saying that God wanted me to get divorced. NO! But he also gives humans free will. I made some choices that ultimately caused the demise of my marriage. After I submitted to God, I asked him to take my mess and make it beautiful, and that is EXACTLY what He is doing. Every. Day. His will in my life. Whoa. Deep, huh?

You may need this message today more than ever or know somebody who needs it. The Lord is speaking through me today, so please pass it on. Remember, His will will ultimately make you happy. Toss your will to the curb and follow what He has in store for you because I can guarantee you - anything that He creates is FAR more beautiful than anything you can.

Namaste.

On honesty...

I've had a Bible in my home for forty-two years, and I'm embarrassed to say how little I actually know about the contents of that book! For example, am I the only one who didn't know that the Lord's Prayer is actually in there twice? And that there are tons of references from the New to the Old Testament? I read the book through when I was in elementary school, and I'm pretty sure I gained nothing from that experience.

Today's discovery was another mis-interpreted verse. Ephesians 5:26 says " Be angry and do not sin": do not let the sun go down on your wrath. I don't know about any of you, but I was under the assumption that this verse spoke about those days when I was a royal grump and picked fights with everybody - that at the end of the day if I hadn't apologized and tried to make amends that I needed to do that before I went to bed. The old Don't go to bed angry rule.

But this morning as I was reading, it dawned on me that the verse before it stated Therefore put away lying, each one speak truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another. Those verses aren't about making sure that when my head hits the pillow I've dissolved my anger. They're about making sure that I don't go to bed WITHOUT expressing my anger to the receiver of the anger. That each day when I went to bed with bitterness and resentment toward somebody (mainly my husband), I was committing a sin. THIS is why I was so depressed, anxious, angry, and bitter. This is why I was alone even thought I was surrounded by people. THIS is why I searched everywhere but where I needed to search.

And this is why I am getting divorced.

God's Word speaks to me today, and I am learning day by day what I will do for my relationships from here on out. Honesty doesn't just mean to not lie. It means to speak truth, even when the truth may hurt someone. Just because it hurts doesn't mean it will harm, and often times if you avoid hurting somebody, in the long run . . . it will harm your relationship. Best to get it out in the open and hash through it. That was my mistake. I was afraid that I'd lose him if I said anything. I put my husband before myself and God. That was my error.

Never again. Learn from this, friends. And follow Ephesians 5:25-26.

Namaste.

Turn the other cheek

I don't know how many times I have heard people use the quotation "turn the other cheek" in reference to dealing with the coarseness of humans. People are mean. Period. Matthew 5:38-42 says:

38 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.’[a]39 But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. 40 And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well. 41 If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles. 42 Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.

But I question the translation of these verses. My Bible even titles the section Retaliation, giving a clear indication that the verses are warning followers of Christ to refrain from retaliation. But is it really saying we should just lie down and allow people to walk all over us? To invite additional punishment?

I pondered this for a few days when I started to think about the hundreds of references to love there are in God's word as well. How can these things go together? Love you neighbor so much that you'll allow him to steal your clothes? Slap you? Sue you?

As I sat in meditation one morning last week the answer came to me. For some reason God reminded me of my years of teaching. Every good reading teacher has hundreds of books on shelves, in bins, on floors, window sills, etc. Most teachers have a system of attempting to keep track of their books - signing them out, checking them out, names and room numbers inside the book, outside the book, on the pages, etc.

No matter what a teacher does, however, dozens go missing every year. Inevitably some student will come running to you telling about so-and-so stealing your books. One year I even had an electronic dictionary stolen from my classroom. Kids steal stuff - or they walk away with them. Whatever you want to call it, if you are a teacher, you inevitably leave the classroom in June a little lighter due to the amount of things that leave your classroom without your permission.

I used to freak out - to hunt kids down - until I started working with kids who were severely under privileged. And one day it dawned on me. He's stealing a book, for Pete's sake. A book. Is stealing wrong? Yes. Should I let my students know that I don't appreciate my things taken? Sure.

But he obviously needed something I couldn't give him by just him asking. The love that I extend my students was never enough. They were always searching for more. That was evident in the number of students I had in my room at lunch time every day. These kids needed love. Unconditional love. I didn't freak out about a book. In fact, I started saying, "Just keep it."

And you know what happened? They stopped stealing. They looked out for me. They protected me, physically and emotionally. They stuck up for me. They loved me. I didn't expect this kind of a response from them, honestly, but it taught me a valuable lesson - one that can be learned from the book of Matthew.

Turning the other cheek, giving more than what people try to take from you - and doing it in love- will often lead to reaping rewards that never even entered your mind. I'm not sure if those verses were meant to warn Christian people to not retaliate. I am under the belief that Jesus was telling us that to fight bitterness and anger with the same will only create more resentment, but to love a person who is trying to hurt you because you want to show them Christ's love will, in time, produce a deeper love and understanding for the great pain that humans endure.

Being human is hard. Being an adult human is really hard. Being a loving adult human is so hard, that sometimes I don't think I will survive the pain. But as we learn how to be human's of God, we take on a new mindset that allows that pain to be soothed and a new person emerges. Shedding our egos and allowing His Holy Spirit to take over creates a peaceful person - one who can turn the other cheek or give away books from her bookshelf to kids who are looking for attention.

God's will for us all is happiness and love, but sometimes it comes in unexpected forms.

Namaste.

On self-love

Last night I had a beautiful one-on-one conversation with a very dear friend who is dealing with some stresses in her life. It's taken her a while to crack open Boundaries, but she finally did, and her book looked like a rainbow of sticky note flags when she walked into my house. A girl after my own heart (I'm obsessed with sticky notes).

As we moved through our discussion of my codependent-people-pleaser issues and her similar issues, we finally stumbled into the topic of loving oneself. I shared with her my calling - to help others to find love for themselves. It sounds like such a broad calling, and in fact it is! But she looked at me and said, "I'm not even sure what that would be like - to love myself."

Funny, I didn't either. I thought I did. I think we all think we do for a long time, but just this year I understood the true feeling of self-love (and self-loathing, for that matter) and discovered that what I had thought was self-love was a desire to love myself so strongly. Almost a self-lust.

I said a very quick "Lord, speak through me" prayer, and I opened my mouth. What came out, I've actually thought about for about twelve hours and decided that I needed to share it with more than just her. I told her that, to me, self love was the ability to do whatever it takes to make myself happy above ALL OTHERS.

All. Others.

Her eyes opened. She leaned back in her chair. The her head turned to the screeches and giggles happening in the other room as our children destroyed each other on the WiiU. I knew exactly what she was thinking. She was thinking that what I said was so selfish. Even above our children? "What about our kids?" she voiced.

"Think about it," I said. "If you do things to make them happy first, you may be in violation of some of your own limits or boundaries which will make them happy and you miserable. Those things may make them happy now, but they may ultimately not allow them to grow. Remember when we talked about the fact that sometimes they have to be uncomfortable or unhappy to grow? If you do things to make YOU happy first, a happy mama means that that happiness and love will seep through, ultimately making your babies happy."

I'm not talking about manicures and massages. I'm talking about setting aside time for YOU. Taking a half hour in the morning to read or exercise. Calling a girlfriend to chat or meet for coffee. Building a stronger relationship with women of your tribe. Spending time with God. Don't scrimp on those things. If anything, make them a part of your routine ahead of putting on makeup or eating breakfast. Take a morning walk. Listen to music that you enjoy. Join a book club or a community choir. But do it all in the name of God. What does he want for you?

Yes, He wants all of our marriages to work out, but He has given man the most blessed gift - aside from His Son's blood to wash away our sins - He's given us free will. Sometimes our marriages are not going to work out. Sometimes our colleagues are going to stab us in the back. Sometimes our children defy us in the worst ways. Sometimes our cars won't start, our basements flood, we run out of gas, we screw up on a presentation, or our neighbors complain about our grass being to long. If we can approach all of this adversity with the Lord backing us, our tendency to collapse into a puddle of mess is far less.

I had a mantra with a colleague years ago when she and I were partners in one of the worst teaching assignments ever in my career. "I'm a mess." Yes we were. Had I had the Lord as a partner in this, I may have been able to handle the pressure much better than I did. There was no time for me. I was busy being the codependent-people-pleaser. I had no idea what self-love was. I WANTED to love myself. I tried loving myself. I even declared self-love to people. But what I had was a seriously strong desire to love myself and no clue as to how to go about doing it. How do I know?

I was not happy.

Now I sit, facing divorce within the next few months, with a paycheck that is one-third of what it was when I was teaching. I am up at five to spend time with God, exercise, get myself ready for the day, and start my day educating my children. By the time three p.m. rolls around I'm gearing up to share my love for music with kiddos whose families have trusted me to teach them how to play piano. By seven or eight p.m. I'm exhausted as I get my babies ready for bed. Then I get to start planning my day for tomorrow, working on paperwork for my university class, and touching base with a few friends. By eleven p.m. I hope to crawl into bed and pass out, which I usually do with ease.

And guess what?

I. Am. Happy. I have found self-love.

Namaste

I am poem

The kids and I are working on I am poems today so I thought I'd write my own.

I am

I am a God-loving and caring mother.

I wonder what will happen in my life in ten years.

I hear buzzing noises in my ears.

I see visions of bad things that have happened in the past.

I want my life to settle down so that I can focus on making it better.

I am a God-loving and caring mother.

I pretend that things are better than they really are at the time.

I feel angry and happy all at the same time.

I touch the soft fur of our kitten.

I worry that my children will not be okay.

I cry when I think about the sadness I have caused others.

I am a God-loving and caring mother.

I understand that I am forgiven.

I say that I will be better after all of this is over.

I dream of a future that is even better than the present.

I try to do the right thing.

I hope that someday I will have a family that is whole again.

I am a God-loving and caring mother.

Don't build your house on the sandy land

When I was a kid my favorite record series was the Psalty the Singing Song Book series. The songs were fun, uplifting, and easy to sing, and the stories had great messages. It's funny how music sticks with you. I can still recite the presidents of the United States from a song I learned when I was seven, and this week I discovered that those messages from Psalty still apply. I've been singing one, in particular, to myself over and over for the last few days, and something Melissa Greene said in her message on Sunday at the Orchard connected to this tune.

Don't Build Your House on the Sandy Land is a song about setting a firm foundation in God to build your life rather than the shifting sand of worldy things. The words go like this: "Don't build your house on the sandy land. Don't build it too near the shore. Well it might look kind of nice, but you'll have to build it twice. Oh you'll have to build your house once more!" It's based from Matthew 7: 24-27 which states:

24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”

In her message, Melissa Greene packed in dozens of solid points for her listeners, but the one important point that applies to my life is the idea of how you live your life. She used the idea of destruction vs. deconstruction. Now I'm a slow processor, so there's a good chance that Melissa's message touched on this point and moved on, but that's where my brain stopped and started moving in a direction made just for me.

I've been living my life in a solid state of destruction, and it wasn't until just recently - I'd say about seven months ago - that I'd begun shifting to a state of deconstruction without even realizing where I was or where I was headed. Melissa was able to put a label to my morphing, and although I hate labels, my logical mind needs them to make sense of what is happening to me.

My entire life I'd built on shifty principles of human addiction, self-gratification, the need for attention, boundary-crossing, and using my relationship with God (or non-relationship for the last 24 years) as a way to achieve in this world. In my wake I'd left relationships torn to shreds by manipulation, lies (mostly unintentional), desperation, lust, and greed. Most often I could never get along with my superiors and always blamed them for being idiots. Much of my life was about me trying to get away from something that bothered me - my job, schooling, my parents, the kids, housework, etc. I was focused on what I didn't want and not what I wanted - and although my husband and I practiced mindfulness and the art of acceptance I just couldn't do it. It was just too hard to accept things that didn't seem to be gelling with my true self. And the resentment built up until my life completely imploded. The ultimate destruction.

In December I began my slow and steady walk with God again. In January I committed to turning things around and reconstructing, but first I had to deconstruct. Just because I had destroyed everything I had known over the last twenty-four years in my relationship with my husband didn't mean that I could just start rebuilding.

When he and I went to Mexico twenty-two years ago, we visited areas of Mayan ruins. At the time we had visited Dzibilchaltun, which was exactly that - in ruins. But there were parts of it that were still standing. These parts had to be deconstructed before they could be reconstructed so that everything would be put back together with solid adhesives. This way, the stones wouldn't fall to the ground during or after reconstruction. Deconstruction. Breaking down my ways, taking them apart piece by piece, and putting them back together with solid adhesives. I was a hot mess from top to bottom and needed a complete overhaul. And that's what I have been doing.

Building on a rock instead of on sandy land. Gluing my life back together with the solidarity of the Lord rather than what I had done for so long which is my belief that I was the only one I could depend on. I'm only human. Melissa pointed out that our humanness gets a bad rap. It does. But when we spend our lives being only human, honestly - we deserve a bad rap. We can't do amazing things without the work of God in our lives. It doesn't have to be THE God that I know. Each of us has our own version of God, but as long as we are under the understanding that he is there and that he has sent his son to die to save us because, honestly, we are all big fat sinners. Why do we seem to be running from what God truly wants for our lives? We are like a bunch of seventeen-year-old kids running around as if we know everything. How can we move past this egocentric way of life and build on a solid foundation? A rock. No more destruction.

And because of this I vow to follow what God's will is for my life and to spend my life reconstructing and helping others deconstruct so that they can reconstruct as well.

Namaste.