Good Grief

Seriously, Grief? I don’t even know what it is, but I’m pretty sure I’m caught in the whirlwind of it. One minute I am just fine and dandy and the next I’m crying my face off. No joke. I feel a little like Queen Elsa – only I can’t make pretty staircases out of ice. I feel like there’s a storm of emotion going on inside of me, but I am hardly even aware that it’s there and I never know when it is going to flurry. I don’t even know the colors or dimensions of it. It just… comes up. Out of nowhere! Unannounced! And it has the worst timing!

I lost my baby.

How do you grieve that? How do you come back to the place where you are whole and able to move on without the terret-ish flurries? Or is that really wholeness? My heart is hurting. I want THAT baby. That baby was part of me, it lived in me, it was formed and magnificently designed inside of me. I want to think that I’m over it, but I’m not. I'm admitting it. Is that how this grief thing really works?

This afternoon I was outside leveling a canyon that was left in our front yard by the removal of a tree. The tree was gone long before we ever moved in, and it left behind a huge hole filled with overgrown grass and surrounded by strangely raised piles of earth that made it impossible to mow. When I started digging, I was surprised to find the hole was actually quite deep. Suddenly, my shovel struck something hard. I leveraged it and the root of the old tree broke through the dirt. Surprisingly the inside of it still seemed fresh and alive.

My shovel caught several more pieces, all with the same bright inside. I didn’t even think twice about it until I started to throw the dirt in on tip of it all. It felt as if something gripped me on the inside, in a place of pain and confusion. Like in war movies when someone gets injured – ya know, the friend comes along to tie a rag or something around the bloody wound and the pressure HURTS LIKE HELL. Luckily I was sweating so much that none of my neighbors could really tell the difference between the streams running down my face.

I just felt so raw and vulnerable. So unsure of whether my feet were on the ground or over my head. I was a mess.

 

You know, the Lord is so sweet. He is so gentle and kind. I was afraid to go there with him outside in the driveway. But he pressed in to meet me. I carried on with my ‘hot yoga in the yard without the yoga’ workout and just kept seeing pictures of these fresh pieces of old tree being buried in the ground. I kept thinking, “What the heck does that mean? WAIT, don't tell me yet!”

I came inside, got kids up from naps, played trains and cars and tickle time, made dinner, put kids to bed, then started in on doing the dishes. And as I am standing there washing the stupid huge pile of dishes-that-never-end in the sink I hear the Lord singing over me:

“There is no one else for me

None but Jesus”

Over and over and over again. Jesus. Jesus. Jesus. No one but Jesus.

So I did what a lot of people do… I looked in the freezer for some ice cream... which is probably like my version of porn – satisfies for a second but leaves you feeling just as crappy and regretful. There wasn’t any ice cream. I thought about making pancakes… at 10 PM? I just couldn’t rationalize that. So this is me saying,

JESUS! THERE IS NO ONE ELSE FOR ME – ONLY YOU! HERE I AM, I WANNA MEET YOU.

Why do I wait? Why do I resist? What am I hanging on to? What pain is worth holding close more than you Jesus? Why am I afraid of you?

So now I am back out at the hole in the ground crying out, “Meet me here God!” And instead of my colorless and dimensionless swirl of emotion, I am caught up in the whirlwind of his presence and love. Suddenly it’s not a hole in the ground, but the hole in my soul. And he is swirling around it with fire, throwing seeds of new life and fresh identity into the place where the pain is trying to swallow me. His whirlwind is leveling the ground, and He’s filling the void with Jesus. He is making me whole.

I wonder if grieving isn't about getting to the place where you don’t think about the pain anymore so you can move on. I think it’s a process where I get to walk every step with the Lord; and when I step in a hole, allow him to flurry around it, bringing the fruit of new life and identity into even the most painful places in my heart, and heal it. It’s not about forgetting or “getting past it,” it’s really not about any destination. It’s about allowing myself to go there with him in everything, and letting him BIRTH his life and identity out of my shoveled up soil. It's about being set free in that place. This is what Jesus died for – the reconciling of every crooked place, the leveling of the rough places to become plane. Every place of pain can intersect with healing, and in Christ our identity is already established as completely full.

Grieving is a beautiful mess when we walk it with Jesus, no matter how dark, deep, scary or ugly the hole is.

 

If you see me and I happen to be a sobbing mess, you’ll know this is where I’m standing.

In the quiet
In the stillness
I know that You are God
In the secret of Your presence
I know there I am restored
When You call I won't refuse
Each new day again I'll choose

There is no one else for me
None but Jesus
Crucified to set me free
Now I live to bring Him praise

In the chaos in confusion
I know You're sovereign still
In the moment of my weakness
You give me grace to do Your will
When You call I won't delay
This my song through all my days

All my delight is in You Lord
All of my hope
All of my strength
All my delight is in You Lord
Forever more

 

 

 

 

So Long Selfish

Even as I am sitting down to write this, I am being hit hard by it. I’ve seen it, but the thing itself fights against exposure. It doesn’t want to be dealt with, it wants a forever home. Well, today I am kicking it to the curb and stepping into the next glory.

I have noticed recently more than ever that I whine a lot. I don’t even realize that I am doing it until it is either pointed out to me by someone else, or it just gets out of control and I feel my emotions slipping into negative space. I think I could probably find a reason to whine in every situation, even the ones I like! What the heck is that? I’ve been asking myself the “Why Whine?” question for several months now, and today the Holy Spirit kinda nailed me.

BINGO – I am super selfish. For the sake of perception, let’s restate – I have been super selfish!

I was lying in bed with my son trying to get him to take a nap. Since he turned 3, I can count on my fingers and toes how many times he’s taken one – it requires me pinning him down in his bed, and every five seconds reminding him to lay still and keep his eyes closed. Once in a while it works, Hallelujah! Well today as I was exercising my nap-making skills, I realized that I wanted him to take a nap. I want him to stop peeing in his underwear. I want to take a nap too. I want to not have to deal with a bunch of anything. I want everything to work out and happen the way, when, where, why, how, with, what (squirrel!) the way I want it to. And when things don’t work out in the way that I like best, guess what: I WHINE.

I have been like the little kid who throws a temper tantrum in the store because she didn’t get every single toy on the shelf. I really do struggle with an internal fit whenever a situation approaches that I know is going to detract from the likelihood of me getting my way. I think I might be the most selfish person I have ever met. The biggest struggle I have as a parent is when my kids are doing things that aggravate or disinterest me. I have forgone connecting with them because I DON’T WANT TO READ THE CAT IN THE HAT EVER AGAIN!

And that's just scratching the surface. It goes way, way, way deeper than that - there is no end to its devious way. It’s a flip switch in the core of my being. It steals compassion, kindness, generosity, adventure, trust, relationship, joy, health, peace, respect, repentance, LIFE! It pollutes the pure flow of who I am designed to be and turns it into a half-breed existence with heaven and hell.  

Just like when dog poo squishes up between your toes and you can finally see the thing that’s been stinkin’ under your foot for the last 30 steps… yep. That’s my selfishness. I saw for the first time today how I have lived for so long with such selfish motivation. I really want to just be sick and nasty over it (and maybe whine a little) but it’s probably better to let it go and move on, right? That’s what I am going to do.

I am not saying that it is bad to get our way ever, or that we should always read The Cat In The Hat or that it’s bad to desire things to be or go a certain way…

But I think if we let the hell side of it go, everything can become a blessing in our lives – when things go exactly how we want, or when they go a different way we don’t expect. If the selfishness stays, it is close to impossible to receive the blessing of the different way.

I repented to the Lord for allowing selfishness to take up such a huge place in my life and asked him to be I AM in that place.

I am ready to experience the blessing on every side.

So long selfish, you are dead to me.

9 Christmases

What an exciting journey life is - It’s full of fun, joy, laughter, tears, pain, heartache, peace, crazy people and occasionally a flash mob. I am still missing the flash mob, but I haven't given up hope. I really love my life. One of the best parts is I really love the person I am sharing it with. In a few weeks Elijah and I will share our 9^th Christmas together, and on New Year’s Day we will celebrate our 9^th wedding anniversary. Our journey is one of my favorite testimonies of the craz-amazingness of God.

I am sharing this to testify to the unmatchable power of God, and also as an honor to my husband for loving me and caring for me, for driving me crazy and making me mad, for giving me adorable children and awkward drive-thru experiences – he is my favorite.

I think most people know our “how we met” story so I won’t go into all those mushy details. Let’s just start on wedding day – the day where two young immature people who don’t really know each other at all get married and think everything is going to be perfect and blissful.

So yeah, not so much. Are you married? If so, I’m sure you rolled your eyes just now. It might have just been an emotional rolling of the eyes, not the actual physical rolling of the eyes. Well how should I know? I should know? I am not sitting right next to you, am I? Oh, so I should just know what is going on inside of you – I should just read your mind? No, I didn’t assume that’s what you were trying to say. I think you might have some issues you need to work on. No, we are not talking about my issues right now, we are talking about yours and you need to deal with this. Right now. This way. Here let me help you (grab person’s neck tightly and shake vigorously).

Sorry about that. Moving on.

We quickly discovered that everything was exactly how we expected it to be, PERFECT AND BLISSFUL… until year 3 when we couldn’t talk about ANYTHING without it turning into an enormous, un-resolvable argument and realized we had been in denial. Well, me – I had been in denial and packed on some serious emotional pounds. I probably ate an entire ‘whoa is me’ pizza all by myself every night.

Needless to say our first three years of marriage and getting to know one another was not a piece of cake. Elijah spent most of his time frustrated at me, and I spent most of my time ‘hurt’ by him. There was a Noah’s Ark sized gap of misunderstanding that floated between us, and I had allowed my expectations of what a good marriage should look like cause me to crawl into a tiny hole, avoid reality and shut down. Not a good place to be. Toward the end of year 3, I became angry – angry at Elijah for being a jerk and angry at myself for not believing in divorce. By this time, I had come to believe some serious things were screwy in the head of my horrible husband. I remember lying in bed next to him, scooted over as close to the edge as possible thinking, “I need to figure out a way to just harden myself over so I can survive the next 60 years. And we are never going to be able to have children together. That would be terrible.” I spent many nights emotionally reliving all the ways he had done me wrong. I despised him.

At this point, I had let go of all of my fantastical expectations and thrown in the towel on the ideal marriage. This meant that I no longer kept silent. It was an ugly season for me (imagine HomeStar Runner voice saying, “The Ugly One!”), and believe me, I have since repented! But the Lord used that time to do something amazing – I grew a pair. During the first three years I didn’t know how to stand up to someone who was merely confident. I was so insecure and afraid of confrontation that I stopped speaking the moment I felt intimidated. Every conversation ended the same way… without a good ending. The ugliness of my emotional puberty was me taking the lid off and letting years of my ‘whoa is me’ pizza spill out. My apologies for the visual.

As I was pillaging through my ugly season collecting awful accusations and demerits against Elijah, I had a moment. A God moment. A parting of the clouds kind of moment.

I was driving home from work and a mental post-it randomly popped into my head – aren’t good wives usually for their husbands? Don’t they usually stand up for him and come to his defense when he is being slandered behind his back? …Oh sweet Jesus, I am the one doing the slandering. BOOM. My mind immediately started to grab at whatever bits of self-justification it could find. “But he... But I didn’t… but he shouldn’t have… If he wasn’t so…” ugh. Pointless. There had to be something off somewhere. So I collected all my awful accusations, all my prized demerits, and presented them to God and asked, “God, are all these things I am believing about Elijah true?”

It is possible that all the people driving on the road with me heard the enormous bolt. It was the first time I heard the Voice of the Lord in this way, like a roaring Lion, rolling on the thunder, BOOMING through time and space to break through my existence and set before me the gentle answer that changed me.

“NOOOOOOOOOOO!”

It was almost desperate sounding, as if God himself had been holding his breath waiting and waiting for me to finally ask the question. It rocked my world. My world was a lie.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It took some time to release the poison. Even while writing this the Lord reminded me of some things I had said to myself that I needed to repent for. I didn’t really understand how to walk through forgiveness completely back then. I am thankful that the Lord journeys with us and brings us out of the ‘muck and mire’ as we yield. I YIELD TO YOU JESUS!!!

Year 4 the Lord gave me some assignments – ways that he wanted me to invest in Elijah. I obeyed, not realizing that what he was really doing was knitting our hearts together, mending what was broken, and reviving his intent for our life together. It was a little awkward at first, but then it started to shift. The Lord showed me the truth about Elijah. He showed me who he really was, how gentle and pure his heart really was for me. He showed me the beautiful gift I had been given; certainly an honor I didn’t deserve. He showed me grace amazing.

 Several months and lots of details later, it had crept up on me. I remember walking up to Olive Garden and almost buckling over on the sidewalk, weeping. I ran into an invisible glittering wall of gratitude. It was our 5^th anniversary – and I was so happy. WE were so happy. I could never have imagined it. I was overcome with honor that the Lord would choose me to be his wife; humility over how low the Lord had to go to save me from its ruin; thankfulness for the past and how God redeemed something so hopeless; joy abounding in love and fulfillment of my dreams. What an amazing painting to come from a thousand bi-polar brush strokes. The most incredible art I've ever experienced.

Every year when our anniversary comes around I am reminded again of Gods amazing redemption. In my heart there is an alter built to the Lord, a mile stone that I pass and stop to see HIM and all HE has done for me, to give thanks and worship him for being an awesome God, for saving me over and over again from my own way. It is a sweet time for me.

Fast forward to year 9 with two babies and even more happiness and joy – I’d say the ideal marriage cannot be defined in time. Wherever there is covenant, ideal is always Gods intent. From the highest to the lowest points, the brush strokes of God create the most beautiful picture.

…Don’t get me wrong, I still have to forgive the turd for falling asleep by 9 every night, using up all the paper towels and leaving his shoes under the couch…

Thank you, babes, for being patient with me and choosing to continue in love for me. Thank you for warring with me into our future past, and our future future (: Thank you for living in time with me NOW and making our world beautiful.  

Happy holiday of happiness my Love! I.AM.SO.HAPPY! XOXO

 And to all of you who read this, I pray an extra measure of love and fulfillment, warmth and peace inside you during this glorious holiday season.

Thirty - Bring It On

The other day I had an epiphany. We were driving down the freeway when all of the sudden several weeks of subtle hints converged into one stunningly clear voice from Heaven. I could swear the clouds parted like they did for King Arthur in Monte Python and the Holy Grail, but with a more extravagant special effects budget.

“What if you have lived your whole life believing that you are different from everyone else, when really, you’re not?”

Thanks a lot, God.

That question literally broke open my world.

. . .

This is the part of my blog where I proceed to open up my sometimes-not-so-pretty insides and tell you about how God has freakin' BLOWN MY MIND.

I love this part. It's my testimony of the Blood of the Lamb that causes me to overcome, right?

 
For a long time now (my whole life), I’ve been tired. I used to get in trouble as a kid for not getting up in the morning after my parents came into my room to wake me up fifty gazillion times. Mean parents.

And now I am a mom! OMG. I AM TIRED. Let’s just be real, moms are probably the most tired people on the planet - except maybe firefighters and nurses, or maybe fitness addicts who work 3 jobs. Or maybe mall cops.
Now that I am a mom, this struggle has been really obviously affecting my life. I have kids to take care of! So when my son wakes up in the morning and I can hardly drag myself out of bed because I am so tired, what do I do? Throw some cereal in a bowl and put on a movie while I walrus on the couch, and when that movie is over put on another one and just hold out until nap time so I can put him to bed and go get in mine? So far that is the best I've been able to come up with for the really bad days. What about the baby? Wow, now I am reallllly tired. A few nights ago I was up every 45 minutes with the baby who decided half of one side every so-very-often was the very best way to nurse through the night.
And let’s not even talk about exercise - I've been so tired for so long, phew. Just thinking about it wears me out. I recently read an article that said if you exercise in the morning it gives you the energy you need to carry you through the day. I've heard people say things like that to me before and it has always puzzled me. I can recall my brain responding, "How in the world can exercise give you energy? I can't even get enough energy to exercise!"

For the last year I have been living in an alternate reality where I didn’t have to face actual reality which is that as long as I live this way, I am not going to accomplish anything but keep my kids alive (hopefully), and maybe blog once in a while. Not exactly my ideal existence.

For the last several months I have been sensing the Lord addressing the issue of exercise-less-ness in my life. I've been seeing him present me with this window of opportunity. Basically, He told me this: "If you start exercising before you turn 30, then I can redeem what was lost over the last 29 years. If you don't, you will lose a portion of your 'inheritance' and never regain it." BOOM

He has also given me some huge revelation about my identity and who I am called to be/do, and I am so excited about it, I can hardly contain it. For the first time ever I have vision for the future, and passion to pursue it. BOOM

All these thoughts are spinning around in my head …and I have no idea how I will ever have the time to accomplish any of it. I am overloaded. Overspent. Disappointed. Hopeless. Depressed. Hiding.

Then, a few weeks ago, I went to coffee with my best friend, Rachelle. God bless Rachelle. She is never fooled by my junk, and is always so polite to uncover it and let me sit in it for a while until I realize that somethin’ is stinkin’ somewherez. We were having a conversation about who knows what, and somehow it got onto the topic of my sad sorry life where I accomplish nothing because I have no time because I am always so exhausted I can hardly get out of bed in the morning. I threw at her every sob story that I had, and at the end of it her response was, “Krissy, I think that’s normal.”

Over the days that followed, her comment kept coming back to me. It was like I was still having a fight with her about it. I’d wake up in the morning exhausted and I could hear it in my head echoing… “Krissy, I think that’s normal.” WHAT?! HELLO, THIS IS NOT NORMAL!

 
Then finally, in that instant – the Lord asked me that sobering question - and my life was turned upside-down.

 
It was like a rainfall of reality started sprinkling down over me.

For as long as I can remember, I have been waiting for the day that I wake up and feel like getting out of bed; waiting for the day that I feel like exercising; waiting for the day that I feel like changing diapers, making breakfast, reading books, playing trains, doing laundry, washing dishes, vacuuming the floor, cleaning toilets, etc. I began seeing flashes of past conversations with other moms about babies not sleeping through the night, flashes of memories of Elijah hitting snooze on his alarm clock, flashes of coworkers drinking energy drinks before their shift…

I realized that for the last 29.99 years I have believed, despite all the evidence against it, that I am the only person who is tired. When in reality, I am just the one who hasn’t pressed through. As I look back on my life I can see from the start of one thing to the unfinished end of another, so many things that I started and never pressed through to the finish.

This could be a really depressing end to this post, but it’s not, THANK GOD! This is like the best 30^th birthday present I could ever receive! It is a missing piece to the puzzle. It is the revelation that propels me into a totally new level of productivity and purpose for the next portion of my life. For the last four weeks I have been getting up early and exercising, pressing through the “too tired” feeling, and experiencing reordered, exciting days! For the first time in a long time, I am not overloaded – I am able to focus on where I am headed. I am not overspent – there seems to be more time in the day. I am not disappointed – I know the Lord is going to come through for me. I am not hopeless – I see that I can accomplish what the Lord has given me to do. I am not depressed – my heart is light and happy. I am not hiding – I am stepping into the light and walking in faith.

So as I sit here staring at thirty I am overcome with thankfulness. It seems like every single day I catch another glimpse of just how gracious God has been to me. If I was that blind and unproductive for my first thirty years… World, you better watch out.

And you know God always brings it back around. Somehow, after all of my ‘wasted’ moments, one thing I have become certain of is that no matter what hardship or impossibility seems to be coming against us, if we keep running and we PRESS THROUGH, God always brings us to triumph on the other side. It is that experience - those flashes of time where God steps in and takes us from point A to point C, and how we got there really doesn’t seem real or make sense - where the circle of “present crisis” intersects with the circle of “the other side” – it forms a window into the miraculous every-day moments where we experience God, and he blows our mind.

This last year has been the best year of my life yet – I say that every year pretty much, but it’s always true. This year has been full of healing, restoration and revelation. I am standing now, looking up at the top of the mountain and for the first time ever, I am ready to overtake it.

Cheers to Thirty

 

 

Mercy - A Birth Story

What a wonderful story this is. I have been wanting and waiting to write it, but just haven’t been able to until now. Be forewarned, it’s going to be a long one.

Of course the story begins with pregnancy, but it started getting interesting about 7 months in.

My first birth experience with Jude was pretty spectacular, so I was a little nervous about my expectations of the second. I didn’t really know what to expect, except for it to be awesome in a different way. And awesome it was, but definitely different on so many levels.

From the very beginning we were asking the Lord to show us who our baby was, and to tell us what its name should be. We came up with a few solid boy name options, which weren’t very helpful once we found out at 16 weeks that we were having a girl (Yay!). We had no girl names yet.

One name that came up about 5 months in was the name Mercy. I saw it on a website and it stood out to me, but I really wanted to hear clearly from the Lord about it. I put it in my back pocket and moved on. It remained the only name that either of us was drawn to. As far as a middle name went, we were totally without.

There was a conference we had watched from Glory of Zion via webcast at the beginning of the year and from it were sent a painting representing one of the twelve tribes of Israel with a correlating meaning with one of the Hebrew months of the year. There are twelve paintings total, all by the same artist and I have wanted one for I don’t know how long. I was excited to finally get one, but was a little ‘eh’ feeling about the print we received. I guess I was kinda hoping for the tribe of Judah or Benjamin, one that was a little more familiar. But we received the tribe of Gad.  I didn’t know anything about Gad, but I was excited anyhow, and felt very blessed to finally have one. About the time that we found out we were having a girl (middle of May), I realized that I had accidently (probably thanks to pregnancy brain) thrown the painting away in the box it came in. I was seriously grieved, and felt so much guilt and shame over it. For months, every time I thought about it I found myself saying, “Oh gosh, I can’t believe I threw that away.” It felt like I was in a battle over it and about the beginning of August I finally forgave and released myself, and asked the Lord to restore what was lost.

About a week later, Elijah and I got out our book “A Time to Advance” to read about the significance of the next Hebrew month we were entering into. Oddly enough, it was the month connected with Gad! By this time we were seriously pressing into the Lord about what to name our little girl and were waiting as patiently as possible for His answer, not really sharing with anyone the names we were considering. We began reading the characteristics for the month of ELUL. “The month that ‘the King is in the field’. Approach Him and allow His countenance to shine on you. The month to fix what has been broken. The ‘mother’ month – month of nurturing.” The Hebrew word for the month, YUD, actually means: Appointed MERCY from the hand of God, with the scripture correlation “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine! We read some more… “ELUL is called “the month for repentance,” “the month for forgiveness,” “the month for MERCY.” God speaks to us in many different ways, but as we were reading through this, we heard Him say very clearly that her name was to be MERCY. Pretty cool. But if that’s not enough, it gets even cooler J We went to bed that night knowing our baby girl’s first name, but still completely in the dark about a middle name. I layed in bed awake and unable to sleep for a while. All of a sudden I heard the word LIEL (pronounced Lee-Elle). I knew it was a Hebrew word, as ten years ago I had spent a year at bible school with a girl from Israel who was named Liel. I thought it was beautiful. I got out my phone and googled the Hebrew meaning. This is what I found: LIEL – “God is mine and I belong to God.”

In case you don’t get it yet, let me re-state that: “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine.”

I woke Elijah and told him what I had heard. He liked it too.

The next morning on my way to work I couldn’t help myself. I told my co-worker that her name was Mercy Liel. I was that confident.

Later that afternoon Elijah had shared with me that a patient had come into his office first thing in the morning. She had several kids, including a 6 month old. They started talking about babies and he shared with her that his wife was pregnant with a girl. She asked him if we had a name yet, and he (after holding in the name ideas per my request for the past few months) felt released to tell her, “Mercy Liel.” Immediately the woman exclaimed, “Liel! That is my baby’s middle name too!” At that point, he was confident as well. Later that evening when we both got home from work we were like, “yep, that’s totally it!” So that was pretty exciting, and it was really special to have our daughter named by God. And I am thankful that God has good taste (at least in our opinion J).

I was due October 28^th, 2012. Our son Jude had arrived 10 days past his due date, and I was pretty sure our little girl would be late too. The big presidential election was coming up close behind, and I joked, “Wouldn’t it be funny if we had Mercy on Election Day?”

We had just started utilizing the principles of The Exchange in our lives toward the middle of my pregnancy, so we were starting to get more familiar and eager to deal with our past junk and get free, and also deal with our generational junk so our kids could walk in freedom from our stuff as well. It was exciting and special to be walking with the Lord during such a crazy time in our life with all that was going on. I quit my job and became a stay-at-home-mom at the time we heard the Lord say to do so, which was mid September, actually two days after my birthday. What a blessing! And since then we have watched the Lord miraculously come through for us financially.

Mercy’s due date was getting closer and closer and closer… I had gotten pretty miserable, and finally to the point one night where I cried out to the Lord for the grace to keep moving forward. The next morning I woke up, and it was like someone had pushed my ‘reset’ button. Obviously God had answered me quickly (I was that bad! Sorry friends, and thanks for putting up with me). I was refreshed and ready to wait as long as it took to birth this baby. I wanted her to be born on God’s schedule, whatever that may be, and I surrendered myself and the birth to Him. Finally, there went my due date with no sign of baby. I did everything in the book to get things moving, wondering if I was being impatient. I pumped for hours (literally), walked miles, ate spicy food, rode in the car on bumpy roads, had my membranes stripped… nothin’. We asked the Lord if there was anything else we should do, and we always felt like he was saying to just wait and be patient.

Six days past my due date, I was starting to get discouraged. We had spent the day doing more of the labor inducing tactics; all but castor oil which is what I had done with Jude (went into labor and had him in 3 hours). That evening I called to update my midwife – no progress. I had had some consistent BX contractions, but they stopped after I went walking. We were wondering if we should do the castor oil, but Cathy was a little resistant. She asked if she could pray for us over the phone, and of course we said YES PLEASE! She asked the Lord to give Elijah specifically a very clear word about how to move forward. I was a little jealous at first that she would ask God to speak to Elijah about it, but I am so glad she did! As soon as we hung up with her, Elijah had a word. He didn’t tell me what it was yet though. He got out some paper and started scribbling. After he was finished he said he had some questions for me. He asked me to tell him all the things I desired for this birth. I kept it pretty basic: I wanted to have a successful home birth, I wanted her to be born in the water, I wanted it to be a peaceful birth, I wanted it to be a fast labor, I wanted to not tear, to not hemorrhage (like I had with Jude), I wanted it to not be painful, and I wanted it to be soon. That was my list. Elijah wrote down my answers, and then he read me the word that the Lord had told him. Basically what he heard the Lord say was that I didn’t need to do castor oil and that He wanted me to ask him for what I wanted because “he wanted to come through for me.” This for some reason hit a deep place in me and I began to weep. I felt His presence so strong, like he was actually physically sitting there holding me. He also said that he wanted us to go out and celebrate with our family of 3 for the last time. It was awesome, and we both got pretty excited…

Maybe a little too excited and took the “celebrate for the last time” as, “celebrate your last night as…” So I decided I was going to really believe the Lord that the baby was going to be born the next day (Sunday, Nov. 4). Can I just say, uh oh!

The next morning I was ready to have a baby, I was declaring all over the place that God promised me she would be born on this day, and that he was going to come through for me. I started having BX contractions again and had them all day, but they jumped all over the place. We told Cathy that God had told us the baby would be born that day, so we kept in touch, waiting for the contractions to get consistent. She came over to our apartment around 7 PM, and we called our friend Lisa over to watch Jude. At about 9 PM my contractions just STOPPED. My hope was dwindling fast. Cathy suggested I go to bed and relax, since a lot of times relaxing can lead to labor picking back up again. She prepped to spend the night on the couch, and poor Lisa slept on the floor in Jude’s room. Elijah and I went to bed, pretty sure I was crying, and thinking “C’mon God, you’ve got 3 hours left to come through on your word.” Elijah told me he was sorry, that it was likely he got so excited that he translated that part of the word incorrectly (we are all human, right?).

The next thing I knew it was 5 AM on Monday. No baby. Cathy was awake and getting ready to leave for a birth seminar she was scheduled to speak at. She came in to see how I was doing emotionally, and checked me to see if I had progressed at all before she left, and I had!... Half a centimeter – ugh, that’s it seriously?! I was at 3.5 CM, after having been 3 for the last 2 weeks. Lisa got up around the same time and went home.

I was laying in the bed utterly broken and disappointed. Elijah asked how I was doing. I told him that I was wrestling with God. I realized that I have had times in the past where I have felt like I had to “give God a pass” for not coming through for me, and that I wasn’t sure what to do this time because I recognized that I shouldn’t have to give God a pass. He’s God, right? I didn’t want to just go through the same old cycle. I also told Elijah about the dream I had.

In my dream I was on a journey with a few friends. I’ll leave out most of the details, but the main thing that kept happening was that my friends kept leaving their bags around, and I (9 months pregnant carrying a toddler around) had to keep picking up and carrying their bags for them. At the end of the dream I hit the last straw. We had been in a room that filled up with water while we were in it and when we got out and the water went down, I left Jude in the hallway with them while I went back in to get all of our bags. When I got into the room there were people that had taken all of our stuff and were forcing me to pay money to buy back all of the items that were left behind. I was mad, not only that my friends were irresponsible with their things and so I had to keep track of it all, but that I actually had to now PAY to get them back! Furious, I paid the money and stormed out of the room only to find that they had left my toddler and my bags alone in the hallway and continued on outside! OMG! I’d had it. I walked out after them, huge and pregnant, draped in bags, hauling a 2 year old. As I approached them, they were jolly and laughing having a good time and didn’t even come to meet me and help me carry all the stuff. The nerve…

Then I woke up.

Elijah asked me what I thought the dream meant and we talked for a while about its meaning. I knew the dream was from the Lord. We were asking the Holy Spirit to show us what he was trying to say through it, and felt like there was something to do with me not letting go of my ‘stuff’ from the past, and also being bothered by others who were able to just let it go. I didn’t know what to do. Elijah asked me if I wanted him to help me walk through an exchange. Reluctantly, I said yes. This was my first exchange we did together.

We silenced the voice of the enemy, bound up any blood line issues, silenced our own voices and asked the Holy Spirit to bring his revelation. Elijah asked him to show me a memory of the root issue the Lord wanted to deal with. Immediately I saw it. A memory I had actually blocked (given God a pass on). I’ve told the story to several people before about how when I was young and I went to summer camps I used to ask the Lord to give me my period before I went to camp so that I wouldn’t have to be worried about it while I was there. If you are a woman, I’m sure you can relate to not wanting to be on your period at a camp. It totally sucks. Anyway, in my story to others I have always said, “and he totally did it every time!”

The truth is, he did do it every time… except the last time.

In my memory, I was maybe 15 years old, had just started becoming cute (I had a really long awkward stage) and learning how to dress myself in a way that didn’t scream “HOMESCHOOLER!”  

I was sitting in the auditorium at camp wearing my new favorite outfit. We were told to stand up and I was so nervous that I had leaked through my shorts so that everyone behind me (including cute boys) could see. I was humiliated.

Elijah asked the Lord to take me back to the emotions of that moment and show me what I was thinking and the lies I started believing.

Lies I believed about God:

1. God doesn’t come through for me.

2. God needs a pass

3. God is not trustworthy

4. God does as little as possible for me

Lies I believed about myself:

1. It is up to me to protect myself now

2. I should hold God at a distance when it comes to believing him to do anything.

3. I need to cover up for Gods lack.

Boom, there it was. All that junk in a moment! Elijah asked him to show me where he was in the memory. I saw myself standing up in the auditorium, and there he was, standing in the row behind me.

I went through the lies, subjecting them to the cross and exchanging them for the truth:

Truth about God:

1. God always come through for me, but not always in the specific way I ask him to.

2. God does not need a pass, He is God and does not mess up.

3. God is completely trustworthy.

4. God takes care of me.

Truth about myself:

1. God is the one who protects me. I do not need to control and manipulate things to be my way.

2. God wants to be as close to me as possible, and for me to always see where he is and all that he is doing for me and in my life.

3. God does not lack or fall short, so he doesn’t need me to cover up for him.

I repented to the Lord for believing that he didn’t take care of me that day. I repented for believing the lies about him and asked him to forgive me. I repented for taking control into my own hands and for requiring God to do my will instead of me seeing His. I released control and manipulation; I forgave myself and released myself to the Lord.

Elijah asked him to show me where he was a second time. This time he wasn’t standing in the row behind me, he was a mini Jesus handing around my neck completely covering my back. Now I can honestly say that Jesus’ got my back J

My spirit was lifted and I wasn’t wrestling with God anymore. I let go of the old cycle and chose to move forward into the new.

Lastly, Elijah asked him to show me a redemptive picture.

Remember my dream? I saw it and just started weeping, totally in awe of God and his goodness. I saw the end of my dream playing out again – the part where I am carrying all the bags, my toddler, and my huge belly out to meet my friends furious that they aren’t helping me at all – but this time I walked out to meet them not carrying anything at all, completely free.

 

This would already make a great ending, but there is still a baby in my belly, remember?!

Around 11 AM Cathy called to check up on me and I was practically in Heaven. I told her all of what had happened and she was so excited! We were all SO EXCITED! I don’t know if there has ever been any woman so excited to have NOT had her baby yet. I spent the day relaxing, and Elijah went to work. It was a normal wonderful day, spent with my sweet little boy, back to patiently waiting for the Lords appointed time for our girl to be born.

The next morning, Tuesday November 6^th, ELECTION DAY, I woke up at 2 AM to what felt like a horrible stomach cramp. I got up and ran to the bathroom thinking I had eaten something that didn’t agree with me. To my surprise, nothing came out. I went back to bed. About 15 minutes later it happened again. It hit me – Maybe this is the natural start of labor! I didn’t wake up Elijah yet; I decided to start my contraction timer to see if it happened again. Sure enough, 15 minutes on the dot! It happened again, but it was a little worse. I woke Elijah and told him I thought I was in labor. He was ready to call Cathy, but I wanted to wait just a little longer to make sure it wasn’t a scare like it had been a day and a half before. After the next contraction we called Cathy. Because my labor had gone so fast with Jude, she didn’t wait to come over. She arrived around 3:30, our friend Lisa came shortly after that, and the second midwife Connie showed up soon after Lisa. We filled up the birth pool, and around 5 Am I got in it. Labor was a totally different experience for me this time. When I had Jude, I practically started labor at transition. I had maybe two contractions 5 minutes apart and then maybe two one minute apart, then non-stop contractions on top of each other until Jude was born. It was a crazy whirlwind; I hardly had time to breathe. This time, I had breaks in between each contraction so I had time to rest. It was definitely a more peaceful experience. I remember laying draped over the side of the pool and seeing the midwives and Lisa sitting on the couch and chairs around the coffee table sipping tea and chatting while they listened to my breathing and sounds. It is amazing how they could tell what stage my labor was in by the noises I made! Birth is amazing, just sayin’. The lights were low, the munch was still sleeping soundly, my husband was sitting next to me praying and giving me juice and water, rubbing my back, doing whatever I needed/wanted him to do. I used a different pool than I had last time, it had more strategic handles, and I was able to labor in a better position that didn’t require him holding me up, so I didn’t need him to be in the pool with me this time. Not a lot more to say… Labor continued like the beautiful normal way it should. By the time transition came around, it hurt like hell. I had to really concentrate on breathing because I was starting to hyperventilate. The midwives walked me through it, and not long after I was holding a sweet little baby in my arms. I was holding Mercy Liel, born on Election Day at the time that matched my due date (10/28) 10:28 AM. She was 9#13.5oz and 21.25” long, born very peacefully at home in the water. It was a relatively short labor, 8.5 hours from start to finish. Everyone was there to welcome her into the world, including her big brother Jude. I sat with her in the water until I birthed the placenta. I wanted to wait to cut the cord until later, so they waited as long as they could. Then the pool started turning dark red… so they cut it, and had me get out of the water so they could examine me. I had NO TEARING!!! So far, I had gotten everything I asked for. We had agreed before the birth that I would get a shot of pitocin when the baby’s head was out so that my uterus would immediately contract after the birth to stop any hemorrhaging. Apparently it wasn’t working. They were monitoring me closely because of what happened at Jude’s birth. They gave me Cytotec, another drug to stop the bleeding. No luck. Then Methergine… still no luck.

If you get grossed out by birth blood and guts type stuff, you may want to take a break from reading this.

Cathy had left to attend another birth before they realized there was a problem. Connie stayed with me and was becoming more and more concerned. She was about to call an ambulance to have me transported to the nearest hospital, but we decided to try one more thing… a placenta smoothie. Poor Lisa had the honor of being the first to try to cut up my placenta and luckily for her, Elijah was there soon after with a McDonald’s smoothie to combine with it. They gave it to me and I nervously started drinking it. Amazingly, it tasted like a delicious McDonald’s smoothie and nothing more!

Within 5 minutes the bleeding stopped.

No transport was necessary, and within a few minutes my baby and I were snuggled back up together in bed nursing and bonding. It was over, and she was finally here!

Initially I was not very fond of the idea, but after it being “prescribed” by my midwife, I had agreed to get my placenta encapsulated. I took it for about a month and a half, and my recovery was amazing! I had to hold myself back because I felt so good! I had very little postpartum bleeding, no out of the ordinary emotions or baby blues, nursing was easier, I had tons of energy – totally different experience from my recovery with Jude, and I am sure mostly due to the placenta thing. No wonder it is becoming such a big deal among natural birthers.

For a while I was thinking this was why the Lord allowed me to hemorrhage. It was on my list of things that I wanted to NOT happen, remember? That along with pain. Two items on my list of desires that he told me to ask for.

I finally asked him about it: What is this, and what do I do about it?

And he showed me.

Because of the fallenness of the world, pain is part of childbirth. And as much as it hurt, I felt like I could conquer anything afterward. That sense that I endured and persevered no matter what and finished well, ahhh… there’s nothing like it. That is not to discount other peoples choices of how they birth, I am only talking about me and the choices I made for mine. I accomplished what I had set out to do regarding birth – I DID IT!

Hemorrhaging – it took me a while to hear him on this one, and this is what he showed me: Not only did it WOW me about the benefits of placenta; it showed me that a HUGE bad cycle in my life had shifted! Did you notice that I never gave God a pass? I asked him where he was first and allowed myself to see him come through for me in an even better way than what I had planned.

There is nothing more important to me than moving forward with God. This was a super sweet moment for me, to know and really become confident that Christ – through the PAIN he endured on the cross – is the ultimate healer through HIS BLOOD, not only of our physical bodies, but of our souls: healing us from the inside out so that we can truly walk in freedom, leaving all our bags at the foot of the cross where they belong.

Plane As Day

It is amazing to me how anything and everything can impact us, especially as children, and in so many different ways! As you all know by now, the thing showing up in many areas of my life the most is FEAR. And although I have been dealing with the Lord about it in each situation when it arises, I have wondered… “Will I ever get rid of fear?” It seems like it came in to my life in so many different places, it’s been a little overwhelming. Well, this is an exchange I MUST share with you!

Now that I am sitting here on the other side of it I see layers and layers that the Lord has been peeling off of me regarding this issue of fear. His intention is always to get to the root of the issue and cut it off, but I had some blocks (layers) that had to be dealt with before I could even get close.

On Wednesday night I was laying in bed unable to fall asleep. I asked the Lord if he was keeping me awake, and if so what his reason was. Randomly a memory popped into my head, a memory that I recall often:

 The summer before I turned five years old my family took a trip to Big Bear, CA. In my memory, we were driving through the town along the road that followed the lake, and out of my window I saw a plane crash. I can see the image as if it had happened yesterday. I remember driving by, unable to direct my eyes away from the sight – a man in a yellow shirt hanging out of the plane upside down with blood running all down his face, another body lying still on the ground in front. The accident had just happened moments before – I was traumatized. 

At the time of the incident, I didn’t know how to communicate or even identify what was going on inside me. But I remember doing everything I could, including eavesdropping on my parents late night conversations, trying to catch tidbits of information about what happened; I wanted to know everything.

Now here I am, almost 25 years later, lying in my bed and feeling the same curious trauma as the Lord replays the picture before me. I needed an exchange. I started to go there - asked the Lord to take me back to the situation so that I could relive all the emotions and thoughts that were going on inside me. I asked him to show me where he was, and I saw it again. This time I saw a gigantic Jesus, wearing the white robe get-up and everything, leaning over and holding up the front of the plane. I didn’t know what he was doing, but he was big and he was there. I began asking him to show me the lies that I started believing… and that’s when I hit a block. I kept getting distracted and couldn’t concentrate. I needed help. Obviously at 3 in the morning Elijah is asleep…and I am usually awake.

I love that quote thing that says something to the tune of, “I don’t want to sleep like a baby, I want to sleep like my husband.” True dat. And I digress…

So I stopped there and waited until the next evening when Elijah was home to help me walk through the process. I had no idea how big a deal this was going to be, and I am so glad the Lord wouldn’t let me move forward without help! It is great to be able to get healing and truth from the Lord on our own with the help of the Holy Spirit, but sometimes we just can’t do it all on our own. Duh, God created us to need each other, right?

So the next night as Elijah and I are going through the exchange these three main lies come out from their hiding place:

1. People get robbed of time when they die, and I don’t want to be robbed.

2. All death is bloody and traumatic and hurts real bad, I don’t want to die.

3. It is my responsibility to make sure that I NEVER DIE.

Da, da da! behold! A huge door was uncovered. The door I was not sure I would ever see, but there it was and all this time it had been poking around right under my nose! The elusive door to FEAR. I have spoken about being afraid of death with people and not thought anything of it. I have been unable to even let my mind think about death for more than a few seconds before I quickly become a crying depressed mess, and my joy plummets into the pit of despair. Hello! Problem? Yes. I couldn’t see it. But on this night, the Lord brought it all out into the open. Not only was I believing some huge lies, I had built my way of life on the foundation of these lies! How much different would you live your life if you thought it was your responsibility to figure out a way to live forever? Don’t answer that. It’s ridiculous. And of course I know that I can’t live forever, so for years I have resorted to begging God to take me home on a flaming chariot like the prophet Elijah. Gotta confess, I was struggling having faith for that one. These were lies I believed even before I could process reality. Crazy huh?

I went through the process. I exchanged each lie reckoning it dead at the cross, and asked the Lord to show me what the truth was. I received the truth and even embraced his way of transition. I forgave the pilot for crashing. I forgave my parents for not understanding what was going on with me and not talking to me about it. I repented for believing God was a robber of time. I repented for believing the lies… all of them (there were more than just 3). I forgave myself for opening up my doors and giving place to fear.

If that isn’t enough to make you feel lighter, it just gets better!

One thing that I really enjoy about the Lord is his sense of humor. He knows I love funny things and laughing, so he is pretty playful in our relationship. He is the king of discretion, so of course he always makes a laugh at the right time (-: Anyway, after I did the exchanging, I asked him to take me back again and show me where he was this time, after the junk was cleared away… it totally surprised me! I may have even physically jumped in my seat. The memory started playing – I am sitting in the car looking out the window when all of a sudden, ssssshhhhhwap! This silly cartoon Jesus smacks into my window, like a bug splatting on a windshield. Instead of seeing a big Jesus, I saw ONLY Jesus. I never saw the crash. I chose to keep this memory and discard the other.

It is so awesome to see his heart for me in those moments. He is always a little distant before I get rid of the lies. Once they are gone he is always right there, so close! Always protecting me and beckoning me to go up higher. And that is the truth. Unfortunately I don’t always see him when it is happening, but thank God for redemption, and his sovereignty to make up the time.

The final step in the exchange process is to ask the Lord to show a redemptive picture. Could be anything, but it usually shows his original intent being set in as the new way in that area of your life.

I was already pretty excited about cartoon Jesus in my window, I was laughing and free. But this is my favorite part. I leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes.

“Lord, show me your redemptive picture.”

Immediately I saw this little red light far off in the distance. The room I was in looked like a military lock down room, like what you see in the movies. Might be what the inside of a tank looks like but bigger, I dunno. There were tiny little windows circling above me that allowed me to see outside from every angle. The land was dark and desolate. As I moved in closer to the red light I realized it was a button.

“God, what is that? It looks like a detonator or something.”

He responded, “That’s exactly what it is. Are you ready?”

I sat there for a second, then suddenly I apprehended what was about to happen. I threw my fist into the air and shouted “YES I AM!”

I grabbed the detonator and pushed the button - Then I watched out the windows as multiple streams of explosions waved out in every direction from my central location into the distant horizon.

This was the day the thread of fear was pulled from my life.

 

Thank you GOD for your resurrection life coming in and reviving this dead place within me!

 

And now comes the practical part. I finally get to grow up in this area of my life! I am not stuck being 4 years old and unable to deal with fear. I get to learn to live life being governed by FAITH.

 

How great, how wide, how deep is your love for us God!

 

 

 

God's Will & Miscarriage

My mind is stirring over this concept - brought on indirectly by a friend, whom I will forgive for forcing me to get out of bed to blog about it at 2 O’clock in the morning (-:

God’s Will.
There are numerous comments that could arise at any given moment pinning some inhumane, ridiculous occurrence on God. When did this start happening? Who was it that lost their marbles first and started proclaiming that God, being sovereign, wills everything for good or evil? It’s the answer to the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” So many people are asking it, and even more people are not able to answer. I read a blog the other day where someone claimed that God “ordained” the Colorado school shooting and that someday when we get to heaven we will understand his reasoning. I about drew a holy freakin’ sword and sliced my computer screen in half.

Now, let’s really talk about God’s will.

Starting at the beginning: God’s will was that He would create a beautiful universe, using light and dark to form a very modern/industrial design worth capturing in a nice frame from Hobby Lobby, and hung on a wall in the average human house… ok, not quite at the beginning. Let’s start in the Garden.

God’s original design was perfect. EVERYTHING was perfect. He made awesome animals, beautiful plants and trees, etc. Then he carefully fashioned man in His image so that they could experience the deepest desire of all creation: Relationship. It is no joke or understatement when people say that God is 100% about relationship. It’s totally true!

In order for relationship to be perfect, He had to give man the freedom to choose to relate. Otherwise it would just be completely predictable, and the relationship wouldn’t be totally real. I’ve heard people say things like this before, and I think that most people get this part – I am just laying ground work. So, speculating that man would always choose to be in relationship with God, which was his ultimate desire and plan, let us review specimen A:

God loves Man

Man loves God

God protects and blesses Man

Man is most alive with God

God delights in Man

Man has wonderful perfect life

Man loves God more

All because God loves Man most

(Please understand this is a grossly simplified version of God’s original intent)

 

Unfortunately, it didn’t really go this way. Man fell. And here’s the kicker…

(drum roll)

THERE IS NO PLAN B!!!

Luckily, God just happens to be all these things:

Sovereign, redeemer, savior, merciful, kind, gracious, etc.

And this is where some of them really come into play.

I do believe that God knows the end from the beginning, the details and the big picture. But I would venture to say that it is not because of sovereignty, which is what it is often attributed to. No, I would say it is just because He is God and He’s a big “know-it-all,” in the best sense. I believe that sovereignty is what allows everything that happens in between the fall to the complete manifestation of His Kingdom to be used “for good,” aka to direct us back to relationship with Him, which is what he desires most and what makes man most alive. Remember, His original intent was for us to be in relationship with Him, in His presence, 24-7.

There are four variables that affect out life:

1. Our choices

2. Others choices

3. Fallenness

4. God’s will

I can see how all of these work together clear as day in my mind as a picture… maybe I’ll paint it someday. But for now, let me try to explain using English. Actually, let me use an example!

Miscarriage.

Miscarriage is a horrible occurrence that most people don’t know how to respond to. But let’s talk about it. I have personally lost two babies. Grieving a baby you never met is a difficult experience, and I can’t even imagine grieving one that you have met! But for the sake of the topic, we will discuss my first miscarriage.

I got pregnant three months after we got married. 6 weeks later I lost the baby. It was a horrible, traumatic experience. Now looking back on it I know a few things:

My choices: I had been on birth control and just gotten off a few weeks before I got pregnant. I was naïve and unaware of the side effects coming off birth control (or the side effects of being on birth control  for that matter).

Others choices: Someone decided to put a drug on the market that could potentially kill the life of an unborn child without it being fully disclosed.

Fallenness: Once in a while the consequences of actions catch up to us. In this case, mine was the birth control baby that died. That babies die at all, hello!

God’s will: For me to be a wonderful loving mother to the beautiful baby that was growing inside me.

Perhaps someone would have told me that it was God’s will that my baby died. Ehh! Wrong answer.

Or maybe someone would have told me that it must not have been in the will of God for me to have a baby yet. Beep! Beep! Beep! False.

Or maybe someone would have accused me that I was not walking in God’s will, or something like that. And the point is not that people shouldn’t say stuff, because people do! We just talked about being affected by the choices of others. But when we see this principle of variables play out in our lives, we actually have two options to choose from.

Option #1: let the bad seed grow. Here is some of its fruit: “It is my fault! I took birth control!” “It’s the birth controls fault! I hate the people who made it!” “Woe is me, everything bad happens to me.” “God is doing this to me because he doesn’t like me as much as other people.”

In any one of the fruits listed in option 1, it is certain that some beliefs are going to be made that are inaccurate with who God is and who we are. It puts us on a slippery slope to ending up an old person overcome by the weight of our life - Most of the time we don’t even realize that we are making decisions and forming new beliefs. To be honest, I didn’t get this revelation until this last year! That is why I am revisiting situations in my past as the Lord brings them up, with a second chance to choose Option #2:

REDEMPTION

So God, what is this? What do I do about it?

“God, I am sorry for using a substance that was harmful to the life you put inside me. I repent for being naïve and not understanding how my choices affect others.”

“God, I choose to forgive the people who made that drug. And I forgive myself for using it.”

“God, I repent for allowing the fallenness of the world to tempt me to believe that you created me to get the bad end of the stick. I understand that a lot of things are not the way you originally intended because of fallenness.”

“God, I believe that you always desire the best for me! Thank you for causing me to see that you were there with me 8 years ago, sitting beside me when I realized I was bleeding. Standing and waiting for me in the space when I ran out to find my car had been towed. Providing and caring for me through my generous and gracious boss. Steering the wheel as I drove in agony to the hospital. Holding my hand and kissing my forehead as I lay on that bed in the emergency room for 5 hours. Joining my heart with my sweet husband and surrounding us with your presence and healing. Thank you that you have always been there, even when I wasn’t looking for you. I choose to believe you, that you created me to be a wonderful and loving mother. Thank you for redeeming this time, instead of allowing me to continue on living in the remains of a fallen belief. I grab hold of your sovereignty and pull it down into this time, this hour, this experience - I receive your love and healing for a lifetime, and run deeper into relationship with you.”

 

The truth is that God’s will is what it always was. And now we allow His sovereignty to take us back and move us forward, while having our lives redeemed along the way. We all have to journey through this world surrounded by the 4 variables; there is no way around them. Our only option for true freedom and peace is to live redeemed – utilizing that 24-7 open line between us and God that was restored through CHRIST! (Thank you Jesus!) – and it always brings us back to His original design and intent: Relationship.

His sovereignty is amazing! It actually allows for all kinds of crappy stuff to happen, and us still be able to experience all the best of what he desires for us – individually and corporately. It also allows us to really know who God is! We don’t have to go through life collecting bad beliefs about Him that, in the end, cause us to withdraw from relationship.

I have believed all kinds of lies – that God doesn’t speak to me; that God doesn’t come through for me; that God only gives me the bare minimum; that the way God made me is not good enough; that he made my body gross and shameful; that he doesn’t satisfy me as much as chocolate. SERIOUSLY! And I probably believed all these lies before I was 10 years old. Thanks to Christ’s work on the cross, I have exchanged all these lies for the truth, and now my past is being redeemed as my future gets more and more free.

Everyone is different. Everyone has a different story and different stuff to deal with. But ALL of it can be redeemed!

My new motto is “an exchange a day drives the shackles away” (-: