Honor

This week is not formally how I planned things by my calendar. But I believe God used this to teach me some things about what it means to honor parents, namely my own parents. My Mom had cataract surgery on Monday and said she would stay at my Aunt's home while she recover for a few days. She asked me to stay with my Dad to watch over him and help take care of him. I wasn't expecting to stay the whole week. But I did. Dad has been struggling with a heart illness that has to be monitored with medicine. I could tell he missed Mom and wished she was home at our house. He said she probably needed a break because she is the nurse in our house for him and he has been weak and down since he learned about his heart condition/illness. So I tried my best to help make meals for him and tried to talk more with my Dad. I also got to spend some time with my nephew who is six years old. While I was at my parents house I also got to spend some time with my older sister and we went to some second hand stores. We really haven't hung out like that in awhile. Especially because she and her family lived in Atlanta, Georgia. All of this to say, God has been teaching me a lot about what it means to be available for relationships and what it means to honor those in our family. And so being there for Dad and being able to serve his needs while Mom was away, was one way I learned how to better honor him. When Mom came home she wanted to take Dad out and get him to walk around and get his mind off of all that consumes him at home. So we went to the mall together walked around, went to the Croqs Shoe Store to buy a pair of Croqs, and then went to the Food Court and had sushi together. Dad hadn't left the house in such a long time because of his concern for his illness. So it was a big deal getting him to go out with us and I sensed it was good for him to be out. We even went to the Vitamin World Store and he seemed like he was in better spirits after we got some vitamin supplements and taked with the Vitamin Consultant for awhile about what is best to take. It really hit me when I came home tonight and I reflected on how this day ended. Mom and Dad wanted to go to the grocery store and my brother was being rather selfish and didn't want to take them. So as I was about to leave to go home to my house, I offered to take them. So we made a trip together again and got in my car to buy groceries. I realized as I was driving them it was another way to honor them. As I walked down the grocery isle with my Dad, I watched his hands and noticed the same hands that held my hands when I was just a little girl, are now pale and worn. I noticed that Dad and Mom move much slower now, more gray hair, and need a little bit more TLC and quality time. I realized as I was driving home from the grocery store with them that spending this time with was another God-given way to honor them and show them love that I do not normally get to do on a regular basis. It was God's way of teaching me how to honor them.

What's Yours?

I must admit I am not one to always know how to start the conversation. But one thing I am learning is that every one has a story. A personal story. When I was in kindergarten I loved picture books (and still do). I think its because the images tell a story that words can not always best capture.

Sometimes we try to read people by the way they come across. Sometimes by their facial expressions...or what they say. Sometimes by their job or the way they dress, what they have or do not have (in America anyway). But those are all superficial ways of reading a person's life and not in any way defines a person's true identity, worth, or character.

I once heard a picture is worth a thousand words. It can say a lot about someone. But underneath, behind the photo, behind the song they sing or write or don't write or share, behind what is said or unsaid...there is definitely a story. This story is worth finding out. Its worth exploring and its worth hearing because its a unique story to that person. I love how there are some similarities in people's stories. But each person's story is still different in other ways too.

I know for me I am an extremely audio-visual learner. That is my special need as a life-long learner. I am someone who has to see many times or at least picture or hear in order to best understand what is being communicated. So even story books that are written this way have a way of teaching me things.

This is why I love the Parables in the Bible because they speak to me in ways that I can picture and understand meaning behind the story, even better than when I read other parts of the Bible sometimes. I also love the way the Psalms are like songs. They are stories of deep passion and deep emotion. Imagine films made about each one. How incredible that would be. Or a series of paintings or a series of orchestral scores of music. The Book of Proverbs are like stories too used metaphorically that leave me hanging on every word.

All of this keeps reminding me that every one has a story that can teach us something worth being heard and shared, something unique about that person's life, something funny that is worth sharing, something sad such as the pains of another's world, something exciting awaiting or...whatever it is. It makes me ask are we being wise stewards of our stories? And if so, then what's yours?

Faith vs. Fear

Jesus told the disciples as he calmed the storm and they were in the boat afraid about what would happen, "O, you of little faith." They doubted his power to take on the storm, his presence with them, and trusting in who He really is. It took watching him physically calm and verbally tell the storm, "Be still."

If I am truly honest with myself, I find myself often in the same boat with these disciples. I forget who is really beside me. I forget who lives in me and is for me and is not against me, unlike the prince of this outer world. If I am really honest, I live in a state of fear because of some traumatic things I faced growing up at a young age over a long period of time into high school. The effects of all that went down in our family, is one that is not so easy to always face.

Its so much easier to numb the emotions from the past experiences of it and how it effects me now. Its easier to play the quiet game and to mask what really happend, to pretend our lives were normal and okay, when the truth is they were not normal times growing up and it was clearly not okay. It was a powerless and vunerable time as a child enduring the things that evoked and sadly instilled fear. But as an adult I know life does not have to be nor stay the way it did then. It takes some level of faith in Christ to believe that life can be different than the years spent this way, far different than the dysfunction of all I saw and felt.

It also takes faith, a mustard seed of faith God says, to connect to the pains of the past and really feel the pain in order to be healed of it, in order to be restored by God from it, in order to know His true peace, true joy, and true love...in order to really appreciate and understand the Gospel message of why God came. That is faith. And it takes walking through it with God in God's strength in order to overcome the fear that enslaves. So I am learning. God is stronger.

Words of Affirmation

There is a lie that children are taught sometimes that says, "sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Nothing could be further from the truth. The very words we heard from the time we were small up to now, be it good or not so good to our ears, are things that do have a tendency to stay with us etched in our minds. There is nothing more loving and encouraging than hearing words of love and encouragement, words that affirm me, words that affirm you. Not words that reject you, negate you, or knock you down. Words that are full of grace and truth, words that edify, words that point me up not down. Words that are honest and not confusing. Words that are clear and direct. Words that affirm me, words that affirm you, that mutually...this is love.

True Love

"Love your neighbor, as yourself." I am having to relearn ways that are not normal to me or at least what I was used to learning growing up in my understanding of what true love means. I am learning to re-program my heart, re-program my mind about what true love really means and how to truly love. Loving my neighbor well can only be done if I am truly loving myself well, which is a whole new paradigm to me. God says in His Word, "My ways are not your ways." This is definitely not my normal way of thinking and doing life. It is a new way to me that God is re-teaching me to do. I am definitely in the process of learning how this works. Its not easy. I often think of the lyrics by Foreigner called, "I Wanna Know What Love Is." Powerful honesty there. I also think of the lyrics by Alanis Morisette called, "That I Would Be Good." Unconditionally loved and accepted with no strings attached. No human personal effort can earn such love from God. And if someone is truly your sister or brother, they will love you even when you struggle. Can you still love yourself when you see yourself struggling?

Matthew 5:3

It amazes me how Jesus associates happy people as those who are poor in spirit (Matthew 5:3). So contrary from the world's definition and experience. What does being poor in spirit mean anyway? I wrestle with this question more and more as I think about what it would take to feel happy all the time, which is not reality this side of heaven. The happiness discussed in Matthew 5:3, sermon-on-the-mount-kind of happiness is not happiness defined by the world because this world is very very corrupt and very very broken.

I am also learning that nothing good lives in me because of my falleness, that even though I can have good intentions, I do not have the power to follow through on them because I am bottom line--weak. My attention and affections are divided more than I am willing to admit. This world around me appears good to my senses from the outside, but not best for my heart and soul at all times looking from the inside.Yet I cave into pressures too great for me to handle on my own. I think its incredible that my life is not some random creation, but that I was created for a relationship and that my relationship was broken with God when Adam and Eve chose their own way and believed a lie that the enemy thought he could get away with. They had to be honest and they had to confess and they had to tell God what they had done and could not cover it up. So what makes me think that I can do the same thing? I too have to face and admit to Him everything I cover up, secrets that have been locked up in the closet for some time, pains unexpressed, and sorrow full of tears.

I can see how the breaking down of my own spirit and emotions and feelings need the power of the Holy Spirit to experience brokeness more in order to come alive and be in greater touch with wounds that need healing, restoration, grace, and love. Christ showed me the way up is down, humility and brokeness must come before happiness and joy can be present. Its hard, but so needed I am finding in order to feel fully alive in Christ, in order to be in touch with the real person I am in Christ under neath my skin. If not, isolation and and keeping people at bay become my spiraling problem.

I am learning that nothing good lives in my sinful nature; that I do have the desire to follow God, but am powerless to live His way. This is why my greatest need is Christ. He is more than able. And He is the only one who can give unconditional love and grac that is overwhelming, too good to be true I feel so many times. And yet He is true.

His death on the cross for me was an expensive gift that I never asked for and yet He pursued me still. He fought for me on the cross. He saw me in my most unacceptable state and knew there was no way even if I tried that I could rescue myself from my own hurts done to me and the hurts I have done to others. He came for those who are sick, for people sick of these pains that will not be healed a part from Him. Only then is the happiness He describes in Matthew 5:3 possible.

The road to experience the happiness he teaches is truly not easy to travel. Even the broken road is narrow and costly. It means letting go and letting Him have it all. I wonder why he gives me mercy in exchange for my brokeness when there is so much of it. I am thankful that I am not alone on this journey and that I have Christ at my side. I am thankful for the promise that he will never leave me nor forsake me because He loves me.