Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
No, that's your friend!
I went over to Kristin's house last week to visit with her and her kids for the evening. Technically, we were supposed to babysit for another friend's kids together, but they got sick so we decided to still get together and hang out. My little friend Sage (Kristin's daughter) grabbed my lanyard to look at what was hanging from it.
I have a key card, my old photo ID and my new photo ID - in reverse order of course, but that's what's on there. Sage saw the new photo ID and said, "what's this?" I said "That's me." Then she flipped and saw the old photo ID and asked "What's this?" and I said "That's me too." To which Sage replied. "No, Miss Ahaaay, that's your friend!"
Her mom and I shared a smile over Sage's head and said "okay." and I put the badge away as Sage became distracted by something more exciting. Still, what is it they say "Out of the mouths of babes." ? Every time I see my badges at work I am reminded of what my 3 year old friend told me. "No, that's your friend!"
You see, on my weight loss journey, I have a hard time thinking of "fat me" as my friend and not someone to judge or someone to ignore or someone hiding just beneath the surface of "thinner me" waiting to take over my life again. I was "fat me" for so much of my life. When I look back I have a hard time accepting her joys and her triumphs and being proud of her and cheering for her and who she was instead of focusing on who she wasn't. Sometimes I think "how do I get there without going back there?" Maybe if I just listen to that 3 year old... one day it will sink in - "No, (that's not me) that's your friend!"
Monday, December 13, 2010
A Testimony of Blessing
When I was little, my mom let me go to a group one of her friend’s daughters belonged to. It was called AWANA and met at RBC. I was in Sparks and I LOVED it. We got to hang out and we learned stories from the felt board and if we memorized our bible verses we got to take home Sparkie (the firefly). It was as a visitor in this children’s ministry that I was taught John 3:16. In my heart I understood that it was the truth even though I was only 7 years old.
Maybe 7 seems too early to really know that you believe in Christ or to fully understand what it means to be saved from sin – when sin seems like such an adult concept. But I had already had to endure "adult" things because I had been molested so I had a firmer grasp on more adult concepts than most children my age, including sin. All I know is that when I memorized those words from John 3:16 it felt like they had been written in my heart and I believed they were as true as anything I could see and that I needed someone –Christ – to save me and that I wanted that kind of LOVE for myself.
And then I got older, and jaded by the world and my circumstances - which will be saved for an as yet unwritten post. While I don’t think I lost my Faith, I know lost my way. Life went the way it did, mostly without God being a present and accounted for part of it. Two years after John and I started trying to have children God began to call me again, but this time He shouted in my pain.
I felt like I was missing something. And it was more than just missing a baby because I don't think you can truly miss something if you never had it to begin with. I wanted a baby, but I was missing God and the peace I knew only He could give. I decided I needed to go back to His house and worship Him, even though I didn't really know how.
Which is when I ended up back at the very beginning… My friend Maggie told me I should come to her church and it turned out to be RBC – only this time, I got to go upstairs with the grown-ups! It’s almost as if He'd been waiting there for me all my life. He has put wonderful people in my path to be His hands and feet, to remind me of His truth. He reinforces it every day, in so many ways.
In this past year He has brought down walls in my life that I didn't even realize I had. I am still learning to walk with Him, to let Him lead me, and not try to lead myself. He has grown me and humbled me and shown me that I have SO much farther to go. But He gave me a husband to hold me up and walk with me. He also gave me a thirst for Himself so that it doesn't matter how far I have to go because I know without a doubt that I want to go there if that is where He is.
It was in that overwhelming thirst for Him that I heard Him speak to me most recently. I had rented a “cabin” at the library to finish up my Bible Study on Covenant. I prayed before I began my study, asking God to teach me what He wanted during my meditation and that He would help me put into practice everything He decided to show me. I would like to share what I learned with all of you.
The first thing He showed me was in Galatians 3:7-9:
Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
So – having gotten that I am a descendant of Abraham (and Sarah), I was then supposed to re-read a passage I had read before as part of the another study (Trusting God Even When Life Hurts). But this time God made it personal:
Isaiah 54:1
The Fertility of Zion
Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child;
Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed (been in labor);
For the sons of the desolate (barren/without hope/inconsolable) one will be more numerous
Than the sons of the married woman,” says the Lord.
Now I’m not Sarah. I know that literally speaking this is a passage where God is promising her that the messiah is coming through her line… that she’s going to have a baby and that her descendants will be more numerous than the sons of the slave woman who bore her husband’s first child.
But knowing that I am a descendant of Abraham and Sarah, the passage took on new meaning for me. For the son’s of the desolate one will be more numerous – because her son’s are all those that are saved! And mine can be too. God used His Word to remind me that even though I might never have children of my own… the love I give to the children in my life that I can’t give to my own flesh and blood, time with them when spent for Christ, will give me more children in heaven than I could ever have on earth.
Of course I can’t lie and tell you that children aren’t a treasure that I want, that I long for still, here on earth… BUT as we have been constantly reminded during the series on The Almighty Dollar vs. The Almighty God we are, according to Matthew 6:20, to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
And as I wrote this out to share with you God spoke to me again…I felt that desire to read further into Isaiah 54… and because I obeyed I was comforted once more when I saw a glimpse of my treasure in verses 11-14:
O Afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
Behold, I will set your stones in antimony, (lustrous, silver-white, crystalline material)
And your foundations I will lay in sapphires.
Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,
And your gates of crystal,
And your entire wall of precious stones.
All your sons will be taught of the LORD;
And the well-being of your sons will be great.
In righteousness you will be established; (recognized as truth, founded, permanently made)
So I get a multitude of children, all of them will be taught of the Lord, their well being will be great, plus I get sapphires, rubies, crystal, precious stones AND made Permanently Righteous… It's not my plan... but it sounds like one I could live with… forever.
Maybe 7 seems too early to really know that you believe in Christ or to fully understand what it means to be saved from sin – when sin seems like such an adult concept. But I had already had to endure "adult" things because I had been molested so I had a firmer grasp on more adult concepts than most children my age, including sin. All I know is that when I memorized those words from John 3:16 it felt like they had been written in my heart and I believed they were as true as anything I could see and that I needed someone –Christ – to save me and that I wanted that kind of LOVE for myself.
And then I got older, and jaded by the world and my circumstances - which will be saved for an as yet unwritten post. While I don’t think I lost my Faith, I know lost my way. Life went the way it did, mostly without God being a present and accounted for part of it. Two years after John and I started trying to have children God began to call me again, but this time He shouted in my pain.
I felt like I was missing something. And it was more than just missing a baby because I don't think you can truly miss something if you never had it to begin with. I wanted a baby, but I was missing God and the peace I knew only He could give. I decided I needed to go back to His house and worship Him, even though I didn't really know how.
Which is when I ended up back at the very beginning… My friend Maggie told me I should come to her church and it turned out to be RBC – only this time, I got to go upstairs with the grown-ups! It’s almost as if He'd been waiting there for me all my life. He has put wonderful people in my path to be His hands and feet, to remind me of His truth. He reinforces it every day, in so many ways.
In this past year He has brought down walls in my life that I didn't even realize I had. I am still learning to walk with Him, to let Him lead me, and not try to lead myself. He has grown me and humbled me and shown me that I have SO much farther to go. But He gave me a husband to hold me up and walk with me. He also gave me a thirst for Himself so that it doesn't matter how far I have to go because I know without a doubt that I want to go there if that is where He is.
It was in that overwhelming thirst for Him that I heard Him speak to me most recently. I had rented a “cabin” at the library to finish up my Bible Study on Covenant. I prayed before I began my study, asking God to teach me what He wanted during my meditation and that He would help me put into practice everything He decided to show me. I would like to share what I learned with all of you.
The first thing He showed me was in Galatians 3:7-9:
Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
So – having gotten that I am a descendant of Abraham (and Sarah), I was then supposed to re-read a passage I had read before as part of the another study (Trusting God Even When Life Hurts). But this time God made it personal:
Isaiah 54:1
The Fertility of Zion
Shout for joy, O barren one, you who have borne no child;
Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud, you who have not travailed (been in labor);
For the sons of the desolate (barren/without hope/inconsolable) one will be more numerous
Than the sons of the married woman,” says the Lord.
Now I’m not Sarah. I know that literally speaking this is a passage where God is promising her that the messiah is coming through her line… that she’s going to have a baby and that her descendants will be more numerous than the sons of the slave woman who bore her husband’s first child.
But knowing that I am a descendant of Abraham and Sarah, the passage took on new meaning for me. For the son’s of the desolate one will be more numerous – because her son’s are all those that are saved! And mine can be too. God used His Word to remind me that even though I might never have children of my own… the love I give to the children in my life that I can’t give to my own flesh and blood, time with them when spent for Christ, will give me more children in heaven than I could ever have on earth.
Of course I can’t lie and tell you that children aren’t a treasure that I want, that I long for still, here on earth… BUT as we have been constantly reminded during the series on The Almighty Dollar vs. The Almighty God we are, according to Matthew 6:20, to “store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal;
And as I wrote this out to share with you God spoke to me again…I felt that desire to read further into Isaiah 54… and because I obeyed I was comforted once more when I saw a glimpse of my treasure in verses 11-14:
O Afflicted one, storm-tossed, and not comforted,
Behold, I will set your stones in antimony, (lustrous, silver-white, crystalline material)
And your foundations I will lay in sapphires.
Moreover, I will make your battlements of rubies,
And your gates of crystal,
And your entire wall of precious stones.
All your sons will be taught of the LORD;
And the well-being of your sons will be great.
In righteousness you will be established; (recognized as truth, founded, permanently made)
So I get a multitude of children, all of them will be taught of the Lord, their well being will be great, plus I get sapphires, rubies, crystal, precious stones AND made Permanently Righteous… It's not my plan... but it sounds like one I could live with… forever.
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