Hosea and Gomer….part 4 (final) January 29, 2009

That night while walking in the snow storm I once again felt the same overwhelming pain that I’d felt as a 12 year old girl……I wanted to die. I thought that was the only way the pain would stop. I could not go on like this.

As I walked, barely able to see because the icy snow was stinging my eyes, I felt an incredible presence and power radiating near me that literally sent me to my knees right there in the snow. This presence was warm and physically powerful. Yet I wasn’t afraid. I knew it was the presence of my Heavenly Father.

And then I sensed another presence on the other side of me. This one was dark and menacing, an oppression clawing at me, so evil that it nearly choked me.

 

And I knew, this night the battle for my heart would be won or lost. It was time to make my decision. Yet I knew in my spirit without a doubt that whichever choice I made my Heavenly Father would continue to love me…..there would be consequences for my actions and He would be grieved, but His covenant with me was forever. It was a blood covenant.

 

And then I heard the dialogue……the enemies taunting voice mocking and saying “she is mine.” His sardonic laughter ringing in my ears…….

And the next voice I heard was that of My Lord Jesus, the Lion of Judah…with a voice full of authority & power He proclaimed…..“No….you cannot have her…..she is MINE. ” It was like a roar that is both terrifying and wonderful all at the same time, a fury and a tenderness…. I felt the rumble. The dark menacing oppression left immediately.

 

The vision playing out before me was one of swords drawn…..Light clashing with darkness, and mighty warrior angels going into battle for me…. It lasted only seconds……I wasn’t afraid because I knew without a doubt who would win…. who had already won…..

 

“They shall walk after the LORD.

He will roar like a lion.

When He roars,

Then His sons shall come trembling from the west;

They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt,

Like a dove from the land of Assyria.

And I will let them dwell in their houses,”

Says the LORD.”

The Book of Hosea

 

How could I turn my back on the One who had given His life for ME…whose blood had been shed for ME…who bore the marks on His back and the holes in His hands…..I knew in that moment that His mercy and compassion were as boundless as His love. No evil, no darkness, nothing, absolutely nothing could contain or diminish His power and His love.

 

When the vision and the battle were over I simply surrendered my heart as bruised and bloody as it was to the One who put His hand on my life instead of my body, who in that instant showed me what real love was all about, wiped the slate clean and gave me back my life.

 

I fell into my Savior’s arms…..I made my choice.

 

And I wept and wept as His love and forgiveness washed over me and cleansed me. The Holy Spirit bathed me in his presence.

 

I no longer felt the cold of the biting; stinging snow……. in fact, the snow began to gently fall…each snowflake feeling like a kiss upon my face. I was being cleansed as each snowflake fell. The snow like a blanket enfolded around me. My Abba Father covered me and enfolded me in His tenderness.

 

It was then that I opened my hands and let each stone fall…….

 

He asked only for my repentance so that His blessings could once again overflow. Where sin abounded, grace abounded much more. (Rom: 5:20) I laid at His feet self-hatred and self-condemnation. As I was held in His loving arms that night, and even though I knew I deserved to be separated from God, I also knew deep in my soul the wonder of being received when I should have been spurned.

 

“So I am going to attract her;

I will lead her into the desert

and speak tenderly to her.

There I will give her back her vineyards,

and I will make the Valley of Trouble a door of hope.

There she will respond as when she was young,

as when she came out of Egypt.”

 

And it shall be, in that day,”

Says the LORD,

“That you will call Me ‘My Husband,

And no longer call Me ‘My Master.

 

I will betroth you to Me forever;

Yes, I will betroth you to Me

In righteousness and justice,

In loving-kindness and mercy;

I will betroth you to Me in faithfulness,

And you shall know the LORD.

 

The Book of Hosea

 

 

I walked into my home and back into the arms of my waiting husband that night a changed woman. My journey of healing began that night…. it would take many years to heal completely; in fact I am still healing. But that night once the healing started I never wanted to go back. That night for the first time in my life I remember feeling whole, pure, and clean. That night I knew I would forever remain faithful to my Lord and also to my husband.

Our story does not end there…..We still needed the redemptive power of God to heal and transform our marriage. Though we could not change our past, we made the choices to begin to shape our future. We each began our journey toward wholeness…. we would not turn back. God’s mercy would give us life again.

 

The Lord says,

“Then I will heal you of your faithlessness;

my love will know no bounds,

for my anger will be gone forever.

I will be like the dew to Israel,

and they will blossom like a lily.

Like the cedar trees in Lebanon,

their roots will be firm.

They will be like spreading branches,

like the beautiful olive trees

and the sweet-smelling cedars in Lebanon.

The people of Israel will again live under my protection.

They will grow like the grain,

they will bloom like a vine,

 

The Book of Hosea

 

Hosea and Gomer~part 3 January 28, 2009

Eventually the charade I was trying to live and the pain I carried was more than I could bear…..this is when my non-Christian friend stepped in. She didn’t condemn me or make me feel like the sinner I knew I was……she showed me unconditional love…..whereas sadly, my Christian friends seem to focus on themselves and their reputations. Understandably some were afraid to confront lovingly.

I lost some friends, and some were scared to let their husbands near me. Yet for some it made them take a long hard look at their own marriages…..they said that if it could happen to my husband and I then perhaps they weren’t so secure either…..we had painted a pretty good picture up until then of the perfect marriage.

 There were some people in the Christian community who suddenly wanted to become our friends, later we realized all they wanted to know were the juicy details. That was sick.

There were some who looked at me as a (I won‘t use a coarse word but will use a less offensive word) “loose woman”. Maybe they never said it with their words but I saw it in their eyes…..each one wanting to pick up a stone…..

 

But hey they didn’t need too…..I already had enough stones gathered myself…..they were part of the baggage I hauled around. I could just hand each one a stone and let them throw it……in fact I secretly begged them to throw it…..I knew I deserved no less.

Yet here was this one friend, a non-believer who did risk our friendship- for my sake…. she knew what it felt like to have stones thrown at her…..she never picked up a stone……she never spiritualized anything.

 She sat me down one morning and with tears in her eyes and a voice that penetrated my heart she asked me if I truly felt no love for my husband……. if I really knew what I was doing to my children, did I really think this other man was going to love me and meet my needs? Would it ease and take away the pain that was so buried deep in my heart? Could I walk away and live with myself? Did I think the baggage would be gone or would I now simply add more to it? She asked these questions and then left…..giving me time alone to face myself.

 

Later that day I began to weep as I wrote a letter to her, finally able to express what was so buried under all the layers of pain…..and all the previous years of pain…..for a brief moment I allowed the window of my soul to open and the Lord showed me momentarily the condition of my wounded & fragmented heart and I penned the following words…..“I did love my husband…..no, I WANTED to love my husband…. but I didn’t know how. And anyway I didn’t deserve him. I’d never deserved him. He was good and I was bad…..in him I saw goodness- in me I saw filth and dirt……and especially now after what I’d done to him…..how could he love me? How would he ever forgive me? And what about God? No- I didn’t deserve love…. I deserved to be stoned”…….and then the window slammed shut again. The icy walls of anger, powerlessness, ambivalence, betrayal, self-contempt and shame encompassing my heart again. I hardened my heart once again.

 

No, a love coming from a man who was verbally abusive to me seemed to be a better love than love from a man who to me seemed passive. I’d only ever known aggressive, abusive love ( at least that’s what I thought love was)……a gentle, tender love “appeared” to me to be so lifeless, so passive, so silent, so foreign -not the “normal” I knew.

 

I kept waiting for my husband’s anger to erupt and I would get the beating I deserved. After all, that’s what seemed “normal” to me. That’s all I witnessed and knew while growing up. And so in my marriage I waited and expected…. I even provoked…..but not once did my husband ever raise his voice, call me names or hit me. But here I was, still choosing this new man, even if it was a sick love it was what was familiar. Just like in Proverbs 26: 11- “A fool who repeats his foolishness is like a dog that goes back to what it has thrown up”. I couldn’t accept a generous kind of love.

 

My Pastor at the time asked to see me. So with a resolve not to crumble I agreed to see him.

We spoke for some time as I let my wrath spew out about my husband and marriage.

Really, I was projecting my hatred of all men onto my husband…it was ugly and he didn’t deserve it.

 

Then he took me to a scripture that would forever change my life. (What I am about to share is probably not great theology and may have been misused…but God knew what it would take to reach me)

My Pastor turned to Hebrews 10:26-31. Verse 26 says- “For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins”.

This is one of the most solemn warnings against apostasy found in the scriptures…..if one willfully forsakes Christ; there is no other sacrifice for sins.

 

 The conversation went something like this:

“Are you telling me that if I leave my husband and go with this other man that I won’t go to heaven?” I asked.

“No, I am not saying that I know that for sure…. I can’t be positive that you won’t go to heaven or not. But are you willing to take the risk? Are you willing to take the chance?” He asked.

*Gulp*……this wasn’t what I wanted to hear. God is a God who forgives right? So if I left and married this other man I would be forgiven and carry on right? Now doubt clouded my mind and I didn’t like what I’d heard. Was I willfully choosing to sin….? Yes……this wasn’t looking very good.

Because I respected my Pastor I listened and we dialogued for quite awhile about the differences between a believer who occasionally sins and when we choose to deliberately sin. My head was spinning. He gave me lots to ponder and consider…..and I was getting angrier.

 

Then he went on and said, “God isn’t asking you to love your husband.”

Whoa, what did he just say??

He turned to Ephesians 5:33 “Each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband too.”

 

We talked for several minutes about respect and love…. man this was too much to take in.

I was in a real dilemma. Now I was forced to ask myself what I was going to do about Jesus. Was I willing to risk losing my salvation? (Please remember that although this is a subject of great debate “once saved always saved” I am not saying I agree either way- or that this Pastor did the right thing…this was simply what it took to get my attention)

“Therefore, behold,

I will hedge up your way with thorns,

And wall her in,

So that she cannot find her paths.

She will chase her lovers,

But not overtake them;

Yes, she will seek them, but not find them.

Then she will say,

‘I will go and return to my first husband,

For then it was better for me than now.’ Hosea 2: 6 & 7

 

 

God truly walled me in……suddenly things didn’t seem so clear anymore….. I loved the Lord deeply even though I was deliberately sinning…..He was still my Lord and I loved Him. I had a choice to make.

 

I went home with a battle waging within me…. it was only days later when one night I went for a walk alone in the countryside that God came alongside me and I saw the battle right before my eyes between good and evil. It was late at night……during a snowstorm……with nothing but the dark sky, swirling snow and the bitter cold, that the Lord opened my eyes to the unseen realm…..That night I had a vision that literally dropped me to my knees…..Right there kneeling in a snow bank, in the middle of a blizzard…..I saw in a vision of the Lord doing battle for my heart……and I would be forever changed…….

 

To be continued

Hosea and Gomer~Part 2 January 27, 2009

This morning I woke up and thought to myself~why am I sharing this…this it too hard….the ugliness it too raw and too real….shame threatens to choke me….

In all honesty sharing my story in “real” life or here on this blog feels very risky …..I realize that for some reading along who are the victims of their spouses betrayal and rejection this may be painful to read as it is a reminder of the deep pain adultery causes….to you I am so sorry.

For others I am taking a risk and opening the door to your possible rejection and lessoned opinion of me…..both with men and women…..maybe as with back then 20 years ago, some women will feel threatened around me….will the men be hesitant to dialogue with me and befriend me….will the women be apprehensive of me or judge me????

 

I wore then and still do to an extent- a label…..not put there by others but kept there myself…..its so hard to remove the label……but His blood is washing me clean…even still….Come Lord Jesus~Come.

Continuing….

Two years into our marriage the Lord Jesus Christ found me……and He became my Lord and Savior. Somehow I thought that since I was now a new creation in Christ that all the baggage I continued to drag around would simply disappear- wrong! It seemed to get worse after I became a Christian. But I became real good at hiding it…..Heck, very quickly I learned to put on a mask and to be “religious”…. looking like those I saw in church who always seemed to have it so together. When I would let something slip about my past I received pat answers like “Jesus is the answer”. Duh, I knew that, but how do I get from point A to point Z…. How did it become a reality in my life, what was I to do with all the baggage, how do I let it go??? I had more questions than answers. The lure of my former life often beckoning me…. could I stay strong enough to fight it? Sadly as the saying goes…the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

 

Skip ahead 7 years into our marriage. I wish I could say that I just “fell” into immorality but that’s not true……. the road to immorality involves a process…. it doesn’t happen instantly. A whole series of events led up to the affair. Although I won’t go into all the details that led up to it suffice to say adultery begins in the mind…..and tragically what began as an emotional involvement turned into a physical affair…. even if it was only one night. We do not live on islands and the web of deceit becomes so consuming that all other areas of life suffer in an attempt to live out a charade…..Adultery, no matter if it is once or a long drawn out affair is never trivial.

 

As I said I won’t lay blame on my husband…it would be too easy to say that I was neglected, that he wasn’t meeting my needs, his work was a priority or that I was left alone as prey for the enemy, all these things may have been true…b-u-t I am still the one who “chose” to walk down this road…. even though at the time I felt powerless to stop it…I really wasn‘t powerless. This sense of powerlessness would later be one of my biggest hurdles to overcome, one of the biggest wounds to be healed…… and it would take each of us years to accept responsibility for what was ours alone to own.

 

Continuing on: It all started when a single friend of ours began to spend a lot of time with us, often when my husband wasn’t home. I rationalized it…. after all he was my friend too and we were both Christians. But over time it progressed…. you know- the fishing for compliments, that sense of electricity between you, the prolonged stare, and the lingering touch. Sharing deep struggles with each other. Things I should have only shared with my husband or a close girlfriend. To eventually my telling him outright that I was attracted to him and he admitted his attraction too. But my telling him was like putting gasoline on a fire. And of course as Christians we spiritualize this mistake by asking them to pray for us. But instead of this man being able to pray in a godly fashion it opened the door for him to now struggle. His ego was ignited and a desire to feed that fire competes with the desire to be godly. It progressed rapidly after that.

 

I can’t even call it an affair…..the truth is it was adultery…..such an ugly word…. But hey as much as I would like to butter it up and make it sound at least acceptable- it isn’t.

 

I was going to divorce my husband and go with this man…..I would take my children with me. I told my husband I hated him and wanted out. I thought this new man was God’s answer for me. After all this man told me how he loved me, how my husband had his chance, now it was his turn…. he would be my knight in shining armor. Surely God was in this?

 

Yet as the emotional affair progressed I slowly began to see a side of this other man that I hadn’t seen before. He began to speak degradingly to me. Making me feel like he was still a good Christian and I was evil-wicked…..the adulterer…. it didn’t matter that he was committing adultery too…..he had been a Christian all his life and I was the Gomer…..I didn’t know any better…. it was my entire fault…. and I accepted it. And still I chose to leave my husband for him…..you see I was programmed to accept this kind of love…..which really wasn’t love at all but I equated my longings for love with attention, attraction and sex……..

 

But God wasn’t going to let me go that easy…..Our friends, both men and women did not know what to do…..no one loved me enough to get to the heart issue…..all but one…. and she wasn’t a believer!! But I am getting ahead of myself.

 

I will never forget the look of betrayal and pain that I caused my husband…..here was the woman he loved walking away. Throwing away his love for her……mocking his tenderness, and allowing herself to be seduced once again by other lovers. I knew he was cut to the heart, disgusted, outraged, broken and in deep pain…..A storm of grief and fury began to build within him……..I saw all this. I saw what it was doing to my children and I still chose to throw it all away……. or at least I almost did.

 

 I am sure like Hosea my husband wanted to shake me awake, to shout at me…. but he never did.

He did fight for me…..but it looked very different than what I thought it would look like…….

 

I saw the look on my husband’s face the morning after God got a hold of his heart…..and I knew something had happened…..In the midst of his pain and grief, he had heard the voice of the Lord……and a transformation began to take place……as with Hosea- God spoke to his heart and asked him “to go and show love to your wife again, though she is loved by another and is an adulteress. Love her as the Lord loves the Israelites, though they turn to other gods.”

 

But my heart was so cold that nothing could penetrate it and I thought- “its a little too late buddy”…..I was still leaving…..

 

but God who had seemed silent until now had other plans…..He would soon open my spiritual eyes and show me how it was breaking not only my husbands heart…..but His as well…that even as I was abandoning Him and turning away…. He was waiting with open arms……. little did I know that before I would run back into His arms and back to my husband, I would be allowed to see the true enemy of my soul…. and my Father’s relentless pursuit of me.

 

To be continued…….

Hosea and Gomer January 26, 2009

This past fall I read the fictional book Healing Stones by Stephen Arturburn and Nancy Rue…this book opened my eyes to many, many truths. So many of the pages were ear tagged and sentences high-lighted…and so often the Holy Spirit would whisper to me-are you getting this? Are you reading this with more than your head? Is your heart hearing this? He would say “this one” regarding a certain sentence and I knew there was something to glean from it, a truth to replace the lies…I continue to be on a journey~I felt like I was reading my own story in this book…I was Demi…and though it was 20 years ago, I still carry the stigma of the woman caught in adultery…I still carry around my own stone. *quiet tears*….but as I process, journal and pray I am trusting and believing that healing will come… my Lord has used this book to crack open the door to where I can now look more fully at self-forgiveness….already I feel the grip on the stone lessening.

 

This feels risky for me sharing this part of my story, will people pick up stones, will they reject me? Abuse from my past brings with it shame and guilt, and although this part of my life’s story is about choices I made as an adult, woven throughout it reveals hidden wounds from my past not yet healed and brought into the light of the cross of Christ…it reveals a deep shame still needing the healing touch of my Lord.

 

 I sense the Lord saying it is now time. I have often said that the Lord supernaturally brought my husband to me. And I liken it to the story of Hosea and Gomer. Because I can get wordy and long-winded (forgive me) I will share this part of my story in stages. Please bear with me and I will try to not share to many “messy” details, for two reasons. One- because I realize that there is a wide range of readers on this site…perhaps some quite young. And two- because sometimes when one has wounds not healed reading someone else’s pain can stir up unresolved emotions and pain….I will try to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading.

 

I realize that ultimately the story of Hosea and Gomer really portrays God’s jealously and love for His people……yet it was the first time a prophet dared to speak of God as a husband and Israel as His bride.

 

It is a tangled love story…. One where God’s heart is repeatedly broken…… it is a story of two lives Gomer and Hosea…. knit together as a living reminder of both God’s judgment and His love……. this is our story……

 

Gomer- her name means “Completion”

 

“I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. Let us acknowledge Him. As surely as the sun rises, He will appear; He will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth.” From the book of Hosea

 

I came into our marriage dragging behind me baggage…. ugly and messy baggage. Baggage that I tried to hide. But how does one hide bulging baggage? But I tried…..I tried to keep the lid so tightly closed on it hoping it would never spill out or heaven forbid “explode”. Sure my husband brought his own baggage too…. but to me the outside of his baggage looked pretty good…. not ugly and dirty like mine…his didn’t seem tattered around the edges and he didn’t seem to work so hard to hide it……actually, he denied it was even there. But this is my story and I won’t be sharing about my husband’s baggage, that’s for him to share if he so chooses too…..I won’t be going into the “if onlys” and placing any blame on him…..this is about my “part” of the story….my “messes”.

 

Why do I say that God supernaturally brought my husband to me……in order to do so I need to back up a bit…. Have any of you watched the movie Georgia Rule? If you have, I was Rachel…… I am not saying I condone the movie, its rather raw, but it gives you an idea of who I was. I was pretty messed up.

 

 I wept through the scene where Rachel leans on Simon as they watch TV, just as she said she liked to do with her stepfather. She longs for real, fatherly love from Simon, but that longing inevitably gets confused with sex. Later, Rachel puts on lingerie, gets in bed with Simon and says that she loves him. Simon refuses to take the bait, telling her, “I’m never going to have sex with you. Never.” He tells Rachel that her stepfather took everything from her, including her capacity to tell right from wrong and her capacity for trust. Real love, he says, is impossible without trust. Rachel thanks him sincerely for saying no to her sexual advance.

 

 

I won’t go into the details of my childhood sexual abuse and rape but will pick up where my husband came into my life. I had been involved with a group of guys where I just was one of their chattels…..sure one of the guys was my boyfriend but really I was everyone’s property. Life was one big party……I was both the tough girl and the party girl. The summer I met my husband to be I had begun to walk away from this group…..I know now it was the Lord leading…..only back then I didn’t know it.  I had gone to church from time to time and had even been confirmed in the Lutheran Church but as my lifestyle began to take the forefront I walked away from the church. I felt too dirty and stained…how could any God love me…. I wasn’t pure and certainly not “good”. I knew my sins……they were many!

 

That summer through a mutual friend from another town I met my husband to be and we began dating. He was unlike any guy I’d ever dated…..Sure he drank and smoked but he treated me like a princess……with such tenderness and a love that was foreign to me. I’d only known abuse.

 

We were married a year later, I at the young age of 18 and he was 19. I realized later that I’d married to escape the life I’d known……and he for different reasons…..perhaps one day he will share his reasons.

We were as different as night and day. He came from a Christian background, a good moral and upstanding family. I came from the wrong side of the tracks!! His family never raised their voices…..mine only knew how to holler. Violence was foreign to them, I was raised with men who were misogynists.

 Coffee was the strongest drink they drank……my father was an alcoholic. I really didn’t know what a Christian was……but I knew how to party and I knew how to be seductive and to use my sensuality to manipulate.

 

 It took me many years later to understand or even accept that my husband loved “me”……..While dating I saw in him goodness, integrity, decency, kindness all the qualities I had never known……lavished on me…..I didn’t know how to receive it or how to handle it. And so even as we dated I did the only thing that I knew how to do……. I gave sex in order to get love…..I enticed a young man to stumble……I have grieved over that many times.

 

And so when we married that baggage I lugged behind me began to open and spill out. All the emotions I had tried to hide began to spill out….guilt, humiliation, blame, anger, rage, shame and the biggest one-fear.

 

 It was a tempestuous marriage…..and like Gomer I was the wife who could not remain faithful to a husband who not only remained faithful but loving.

 

I think this is where I will leave off for now……I have never shared the next part of my story with anyone……because of the deep shame-perhaps… it’s not a story I am not proud of or one that is easy for me to  share…..but I sense the Lord saying that I need to……its time…..healing will come as I release it….

 

Even now the tears flow…. not necessarily because of shame…..but because God loved me long before I ever thought of loving Him…. its a story of my unfaithfulness and God’s forgiveness……

 

To be continued…………

 

 

 

A Beautiful Funeral January 24, 2009

Sometimes I think about my funeral.  Over the years I’ve had the opportunity to attend many funerals, some of people I knew well and some of people I barely knew at all.  Years ago I attended the saddest funeral ever.  My husband was there; he gave the eulogy.  I came and brought our young daughter.  An orderly from the hospital came and brought his wife and daughter with him.  That was it – six people – all strangers really.  I had met the deceased only one time.  We went to visit him when he called from the hospital.  I still wonder how he got our phone number.  We talked for about an hour; his story full of bitterness and regret.  It really makes you think about how you treat people.  This man lived a full life but left no one behind to honor and mourn him.  So sad.

This week I attended a beautiful funeral.  A healthy forty year old woman died unexpectedly.  I’ve never seen our little church building so crowded.  Every chair was filled and visitors stood along the walls and overflowed into the lobby.  While there were plenty of tears and grief at a life cut too short, we really came together to say goodbye and celebrate a wonderful woman’s life.  We shared stories, laughed, and remembered the many ways she had touched us before moving on.  I want to earn a funeral like that one.

 I sang two songs in front of all those people.  Three of us sang together, two old hymns.  For the first time in my life I didn’t feel nervous.  I didn’t think about how I looked or how I sounded.  I thought about my friend who had died and all the people there who had come to say goodbye.  And I thought about the words to the songs.  One of them went like this.

Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder,

Why it should be thus all the day long.

While there are others living about us,

Never molested though in the wrong.

Farther along we’ll know all about it.

Farther along we’ll understand why.

Cheer up my brother live in the sunshine.

We’ll understand it all by and by.

 

Sabbath Rest January 21, 2009

“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread….”

Bilbo Baggins to Gandalf, from The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkien

 

Yep, that pretty much describes what I’ve been feeling….no, this is not a post where I am whining and complaining, rather I am becoming consciously aware that the signs for rest have been there and in my busyness I have ignored them.

 

I’ve been studying about the Sabbath rest….how God balanced work and rest in a healthy rhythm. He created for six days and then guiltlessly ceased from His labor on the 7th. He stepped back from all of it and feasted, enjoyed all that He had done. I am realizing even more that He designed me/us for the need to pause, to be restored and to rest. The need for Sabbath.

 

Tilden Edwards in his book, Sabbath Time, says that we should find a balance between surrendering to the busy demands of our culture and totally withdrawing from it. “Christian Sabbath”, he writes, “refers both to a special day of the week, and to a special quality of time available daily.” It is in this structural and symbolic context that I am beginning to practice Sabbath rest.

Author Abraham Heschel also describes the Sabbath as the state wherein we lie still, where the weary are at rest. He speaks about how we have fallen victim to the work of our hands, and he cautions that we have neglected the pursuit of the eternal in the pursuit of the temporary.

 

Sadly, sometimes I work more than I sabbath because I believe that I am somehow earning extra points with God. I must always be doing, laboring, working, striving. The Holy Spirit has to remind me that God’s grace, not my work, has secured my standing. Christ invites me to slow down. And so when I read Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”, the words pierce my heart with joy as I drag my weary soul around….

 

It is in the quietness that Christ whispers to my soul, “Welcome to the grace that offers rest.”

 

Because it is in this grace that I begin to put into practice and receive the spirit of sabbath rest. It begins to bring balance to my soul. God spoke to Moses through a burning bush and said, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” So that means that any place where God reveals Himself is holy ground….

And I really understood for the first time today that the Sabbath was the first thing God declared to be holy. God declared His work on the first six days as good, but He named the day of rest as “holy”. It’s these Sabbath moments when I take the time to catch my breath that God reveals Himself…and these moments are holy….and just like Moses I remove my sandals.

 

“Rest is a decision we make. Rest is

choosing to do nothing when we have too much to do, slowing down

when we feel pressure to go faster, stopping instead of

starting. Rest is listening to our weariness

and responding to our tiredness, not what is making us tired.

Rest is what happens when we say one simple

word:”NO!”

For Tyler McMillan January 19, 2009

 

The tragic murder of Tyler McMillan last summer is still fresh on our hearts and minds.  A gag order has been enforced in the case, but commenters on our original blog post have shared updates regarding the criminal proceedings.

http://tearsinabottle.wordpress.com/2008/06/17/justice-for-tyler/

A commenter on this blog has started a facebook cause to remember Tyler and to stand for justice in the criminal trials of Tyler’s father and step-mother.

http://apps.facebook.com/causes/194397?recruiter_id=17430233

If you are a facebook member, one way you can help is to join the cause.  Another way to help is to make a donation to Prevent Child Abuse North Carolina, Inc., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.

http://www.preventchildabusenc.org/

We must all be more acutely aware of the signs and symptoms of child abuse as a result of Tyler’s death and be willing to report suspected cases of child abuse to authorities for investigation.

What else can we do to work to ensure justice for Tyler within our legal system?  What else can we do to make sure what happened to Tyler doesn’t happen to another innocent child?  Please add your thoughts and comments below.

Falling Into Grace January 15, 2009

My fear of falling from the Grace of God has often compelled me to make excuses for my choices.  But when the rug of my rationalizations was pulled out from under me, I fell into His Grace instead.  And there in that Garden I once again met my humble Rescuer.      Jesus, who spoke with Pharisees as freely as prostitutes has not given up on me.  He offers me freedom from all my self-protecting defenses and holds out the chance for me to walk in compassion and courage.

God bless you and thank you for reading.

Ogres Have Layers January 9, 2009

There’s a prayer I’ve been praying, one that I didn’t write, and there’s a part of that prayer where I ask God for “a deep and true repentance”.  Each time I pray that prayer I wonder what that means and how I’ll know it when I see it.  Besides that, self-forgiveness has been a bit of a theme recently on this blog and I think that’s been true for a reason.  Forgiveness and repentance…  repentance and forgiveness…  two topics that have swirled around inside me lately like dried up leaves on a windy day.  I know God is working on me in all of that.  He has a persistent way of reminding me of things.  

Have you ever learned something you thought you understood but later found out what you knew was superficial?  Forgiveness and repentance, it seems, like ogres and onions, have layers.

I messed up last month and did something I would give almost anything to undo.  In my life I’ve done quite a lot of things I regret, and have had many chances to repent.  This time feels different.  Something has changed and my sin feels different than it ever has to me because my understanding of sin is fresh.  Many times in the past I have sinned, felt regret, said the magic words, asked for forgiveness, and resolved never to do it again.  This time feels like the first time in all of that I haven’t also on some level made an excuse for myself.  There is no excuse.  I sinned by choice.  I am completely at the mercy of God.  And it’s slowly sinking in to me that I have been all along.  

Pride doesn’t want grace.  Pride can’t admit it’s necessary.  Pride makes excuses rather than forgives.  You can’t forgive yourself without admitting you stand in need of real forgiveness.  It requires a lot of humility to peel back the layers of the heart and let God in to do His redemptive work.  My pride has gotten in the way for too long.  Thank God for His patience with me.

To Find Delight January 4, 2009

I just looked up the word delight on Bible Gateway.  The word is used in the Bible over 100 times.  It seems to be fairly evenly split between two uses:  God delighting in His humans and His humans delighting in God.  To delight is to find joy, extreme satisfaction, great pleasure, reward.  I think the Biblical picture of delight is a cycle: God takes great pleasure in giving us great joy as we in turn find our greatest reward in Him.

Here’s one example from Psalm 36.

How priceless is your unfailing love! 
       Both high and low among men 
       find  refuge in the shadow of your wings.

  They feast on the abundance of your house; 
       you give them drink from your river of delights.

Heart wounds attack our capability of taking delight in anything.  With dull eyes and living-dead spirits we miss opportunities to see blessings and find gratitude.  The journey of healing begins with the practice of joy.  Slow down.  Notice things.  Stop.  Feel.  Appreciate.  Express.  To find delight in our Father is more urgent than our spiritual and material agendas.  It is the stuff of life.  Don’t miss it.