Teachable moments

I'm currently fasting. In telling you so, I'm not intentionally violating Matthew 6:16-18 and trying to be like all spiritual and stuff. It's just that, well, I attend a megachurch. We're doing a 21-day churchwide fast, so there are thousands of us who are currently fasting in one way or another. That ain't no big secret.

For this particular fast, I'm doing something a little bit differently than I've done in the past. When I checked with God to see how He wanted me to fast, I kept hearing the word "fresh." So, my specific instructions are that I can only eat foods that are "fresh." Or if "fresh" foods aren't available, I need to read Bible passages that are "fresh" to me while I'm eating. I've read the Bible before, but God has been highlighting specific passages for me to read while I chow down non-fresh foods, which I think has been really cool.

So, I've been eating a lot of Subway (their slogan is "Eat Fresh," so anything on their menu is up for grabs) and reading a lot of Bible verses that are brand-new to me (like Ezekiel 26, which currently has me in Bible-study-hunt suspense: Why is God so mad at Tyre???). Also, for choir events, I've been instructed to eat whatever is put in front of me, which is why I've been scarfing everything down like a madwoman. For breakfast, I've been instructed to eat unsweetened oatmeal and wash it down with black coffee.

Whew! Those are all very specific instructions. But that's how God rolls with me sometimes, especially during a fast. I mean, eating is serious business. I'm dependent on Him regarding what I can and can't eat and drink, so I kinda have to follow Him around like a lovesick puppydog to find out what's OK and what's not OK.

 

For me, what's OK is anything that is packaged with the words "guaranteed fresh." So, even junk food that I can buy at a gas station is OK for me during this particular fast. God is like, "If it says it's guaranteed fresh, that means it's guaranteed fresh." Here I've shared a photo of Lay's potato chips, Limón flavor, mis papitas favoritas, which I plan to scarf down during lunch sometime this week.

And all the "fresh" food I've been eating, physically or spiritually, has really hit the spot.

So, this past Friday night when I was at the beautiful coin laundromat, I was permitted to snack on Fritos from the vending machine because the packaging said the food was "guaranteed fresh." While I was chowing down near the dryers, a little girl saw me eating and petitioned her mother with a bit of shouting and foot-stomping. A few moments later, the little girl was eating from a freshly purchased bag of vending-machine chips while sitting on the bench next to me. I felt responsible.

Hey, I'm a leader. I'm a shepherd. That's who I am. That's what I do. I can't help that.

"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye." (Psalm 32:8)

Sometimes when I watch people parent their kids, and when I see them doing it the right way, I'll be like, Aww, yeah, that's how it should be done, and I'll feel a tiny bit vindicated because I was raised by [bleep]holes, and I'll feel a tiny bit robbed.

One thing that my birth parents did completely wrong -- something that they completely missed out on with me -- was doing what I think childcare experts refer to as "teachable moments." In other words, when something happens, one thing that a good parent will do is take a moment and teach a mini life lesson about that something. For example, say you go to a restaurant where there's a 45-minute wait. You power through your 45-minute wait, and you're finally seated. Then the meal is served, and the food is the best your kid has ever tasted. Your teachable moment has arrived. You can tell your kid, "Wasn't this awesome food worth waiting for? Sometimes if you really want something good, you have to wait for it. Some of the best things in life are worth waiting for." I think a teachable moment is something simple like that. Take a childhood full of teachable moments, add them all up, and you have one wise young adult.

When I was growing up, my teachable moments weren't like that. My extremely critical, harshly judgmental birth parents would have painted a completely different picture of life for me. For example, I think if we had to wait 45 minutes to be served at a restaurant, my effeminate birth father would have melodramatically almost-fainted for lack of food, and my stoic-macho birth mother would have smiled through her hunger and then hissed at the waitress behind her back. Or something like that.

My real-life teachable moments were unhealthy. They were marked with fleshly lessons on how to ignore people who were supposedly jealous of me, how to thoroughly chew people out gossipwise behind their backs, or why our family would always be better than everybody else's.

Bearing in mind that I really don't think my birth mother is saved, I can look back and see how my birth parents totally missed their chances to give me healthy teachable moments regarding sexual issues. The unspoken rule in my house was "You can do whatever you want as long as you don't have sex before you get married." Everything else was pretty much every man for himself, so to speak. For example, one time when I was home from college, I passed by my sister's bedroom. The door was open, but she and her boyfriend were fully clothed and making out while lying on her bed. Shocked, I informed my birth mother. She was pretty meh about it: "As long as they don't go all the way." Great. Way to encourage your kid's purity.

So, how have I been getting healed from all that stuff? Of course. God has been re-parenting me and giving me lots of teachable moments Himself. And I think He especially likes to do so when I'm fasting.

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly." (Psalm 84:11)

While I was getting ready this morning, for example, perhaps I was avoiding eye contact with Him or something, because He was like, "I'm not just a God that you pray to during your quiet time. I'm your Father. I can tell when you're mad at Me." I was mad at Him? I don't remember the exact words of our conversation after that, but He showed me that I was mad at Him for withholding a husband from me. (I haven't had a date in 20 years, and I haven't been cool with that.) Of course, if anger isn't dealt with properly, it could lead to bitterness, which -- as our pastor has mentioned quite a few times -- according to Hebrews 12, could lead to sexual sin. Sure, me being mad at God for not giving me a husband has led to my being bitter toward Him, which has contributed to my struggle with [insert X-rated sins here].

He and I have dealt with this before, but this morning, I needed to deal with it afresh. I mean, I think having a husband would be a good thing, Psalm 84:11-style. But maybe He's been withholding it from me because having a husband wouldn't be a good thing for me. At least, not right now. I mean, if I had gotten married before I disowned myself from my family, my husband would be stuck with them as in-laws. That would have been extremely awkward. And, not to mention, he would probably have to deal with my struggle with [insert X-rated sins here]. I wouldn't want to bring this crap into a marriage. I'm glad God is taking lots of time to let me deal with it now.

And, of course, there is always the possibility that I could never get married. I need to be OK with that. I mean, Valentine's Day is just around the corner. It's right in my face. So, my faithful Father is very cool about bringing these issues to my face, too.

I like God. He's like my Husband, my Father, and my Friend simultaneously.

(Speaking of being mad at somebody, why is God so mad at Tyre???)

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore be imitators of God as dear children." (Ephesians 4:31 - 5:1)

"If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall fall on me,' even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You." (Psalm 139:11-12)

While I was in college, my roommate came home with me at Easter. She observed that I took after my birth father a lot, saying that the way that I "maneuvered around objects" was just like him. Yes, I definitely look and walk like him.

So, my Father God totally did a teachable moment with me a few nights ago when the power went out in my entire apartment complex. Suddenly at 9:30 p.m., everything went dark, and I had to adapt. I got ready for bed by the lights of my cell phone and my laptop, and thankfully the power was restored within the hour. But while it was still dark, I don't remember His exact words, but God talked to me about my struggle with [insert X-rated sins here] and was like, "I'm letting you get to know your way around in the dark."

One reason why my lifelong struggle with [insert X-rated sins here] has been overwhelming is because when the temptations hit, they're lightning fast, and they're pretty scary. Metaphorically speaking, you've been waiting 45 minutes to eat, so you've been melodramatically almost-fainting for lack of food, and after you give in to temptation, you hiss at the devil behind his back and blame him for your struggle. (Of course, when I say "you," I mean "me.") There's really no time to submit a prayer request, there's nobody around to stop me, and it's pretty much every man for himself, so to speak.

But if I'm learning my way around in the dark, so to speak, at least I'll be able to familiarize myself with the temptations, the setups, and the armor. There's a demon staring at me? Hmm. I've got my sword handy. I can just slice through him like NO TEMPTATION HAS OVERTAKEN ME EXCEPT THAT WHICH IS COMMON TO MAN -- WAPAH!!! GO DRINK YOUR OWN VIOLENCE!!! My flesh still isn't dead, even though it's been nailed and crucified for quite some time? Hmm. I can smell its stench, even in the dark. I can just maneuver around that object and wait for it to finally kick the bucket.

If, according to my college roommate, I "maneuvered around objects" just like my birth father did, I want to maneuver around in the darkness just like God my Father does. Darkness is vague and scary, but it's definitely possible to find God in the midst of it.

Vagueness can be a scary thing. If you don't know what's coming next, you could freak out. But God has been showing me that vagueness is something that will heal legalism. I was a legalistic Pharisee. I was taught that life had to be lived a certain way, and it had to be lived that way all the time, or else; and if your life wasn't turning out a certain way, you were doing it wrong.

Well, guess what? God is comfortable with vagueness. He is the only One who is supposed to know all the answers all the time. Not me. Because I'm not God. He is. Not me. I can't even eat right now without Him.

So, during this current fast when I can eat junk food like potato chips because, as God indicated for me, "If it says it's guaranteed fresh, that means it's guaranteed fresh," that's totally a teachable moment. When I open my Bible and read it, if it says [insert truth here], that means [insert truth here]. If the Bible says so, that means it's so.

In recent months, my struggle with [insert X-rated sins here] has really come to a head, and God and I have really spent a lot of time dealing with it. It's been a long, gradual journey, and I finally began to be disgusted with my sin about a month ago. But even though those X-rated sins are really disgusting, I've found that for me personally, my X-rated sins haven't offended God as much as my unbelief has. (In the past, I've struggled with atheistic/agnostic thoughts, with wondering whether or not God exists. So, me singing in the choir this weekend to declare that I believe in Him was an "ooo!" "aaah!" I'm-punching-the-devil's-lights-out! kind of a declaration.) For me personally, God has shown me that my past unbelief was more offensive to Him than my current struggle with [insert X-rated sins here].

Speaking of college, I went to a really big Christian one. It was so big that it hired professors who were a bit too open-minded. The good news was that they encouraged deep, probing discussions from us students. The bad news was that these overly open-minded professors were complete wusses about showing us what real truth was. For example, I remember one discussion in class when a classmate was like, "If God is love, then love is God." Um, no. (Unless, of course, you choose to worship the concept of love; then it will become your god.)

Then when I joined a church in the college town, one of the requirements was to adhere to the church's statement of faith. One of these statements was that the Bible, in its original manuscripts, is the written word of God. Um... so, the English translations that I read today are totally bogus? Great. Thanks for throwing a wrench in my faith.

So, this type of crap, combined with my legalistic upbringing, combined with the spiritually abusive deprogramming that I was condemned to after I was baptized in the Holy Spirit -- all of this stuff contributed to the eroding of my faith. People have puked into my soul, and God has been scrape-cleaning it out. I think it's been quite the undertaking. But He doesn't seem worried. I daresay He delights in cleaning up my messes. Even though I find it to be thoroughly disgusting.

But He hasn't kicked me to the curb. I'm still His, and He's still mine.

And if the Bible (even in my English translation) says something like the following...

"He will fulfill the desire of those who fear Him; He also will hear their cry and save them." (Psalm 145:19)

...that's guaranteed fresh. That means if it says God will fulfill my desire, hear my cry, and save me, He will. And right now, my desire is to be free from [insert X-rated sins here]. God will fulfill my desire. Because He said so.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go eat a non-fresh bowl of soup from a can while satisfying my curiosity about an age-old beef with Tyre. (Seriously, why is God so mad at Tyre???)

Impaled

Now that I'm totally free from depression, the next major issue in my life that God and I have been working on is lust. And He's shown me that lust has had a bigger hold on me than depression did. So, if you're a regular reader of my blog, I think I should give you a heads-up that you're probably going to keep getting an earful/eyeful of my processing this particular issue. This particular post will be a bit graphic (in case you can't tell from the title). Again, thank you very much in advance for reading.

"Behold, the former things have come to pass, and new things I declare; before they spring forth I tell you of them." (Isaiah 42:9)

"And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24)

One major overcomer whose life is a good example to follow is Dennis Jernigan. In his book Giant Killers, he talks frankly about his lifelong battle with sexual issues, his epic freedom-encounter with Jesus, and his long, arduous time of walking out his healing. He says that since a person's sex drive is a creative drive, the devil's strategy was basically to destroy his creative calling (Dennis Jernigan is a worship leader and a very prolific songwriter) by attacking his sexuality. I found his observation to be very helpful (since I am a creative person myself).

But not everything can be blamed on the devil. Some of the stuff that trips me up is what the Bible calls my "flesh," which, from what I understand theologically, is my nature as a human being. Galatians 5 talks about how instead of walking in the flesh (which would mean having bouts of angry outbursts, jealousy, lust, etc.), I need to be walking in the Spirit (which would mean flowing in His love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, kindness, and self-control).

So, I've declared war on my flesh. From what I understand, a huge part of this war is crucifying my flesh, like Galatians 5:24 says. So, lately, I've been fascinated with the concept of "crucifixion."

Dennis Jernigan shares some very helpful stuff about this in his book. He says that one day, he was having a conversation with Jesus, who told him, "Crucifixion is not an instant death; it can be long and excruciating. The flesh does not want to die. But once you have begun the process, it will be completed." Understanding that the crucifixion of my flesh can be a long process has been extremely helpful.

Regarding "crucifixion" in general, Wikipedia has some interesting things to say about it. I think one of the Greek words for "crucify" basically means "to impale." Way back in ancient times, they used to nail people or hang people to trees as punishment for committing a crime and as a warning to other people to not commit the same crime. There seems to be a variety of ways to crucify people. In some cultures, I think they disembowel the criminals before they crucify them. In Japan, in the 1800s, they would kill the criminal first and then crucify him. In some cultures, they still crucify people as a form of capital punishment.

But regardless of the culture, the reason, or the method, it seems that the basic concept of "crucifixion" is the same no matter how it's done. When you crucify somebody, you impale him/her as a way of saying, "Hey, you! You've been doing wrong, but now you must stop. You are going to stop right there until you die. You can squirm and wiggle all you want, but you are about to kick the bucket in a gruesome, excruciatingly terrible way, and then you're going to be ancient history."

Crucifixion won't always kill a person. There is at least one ancient account of a criminal who was crucified, and then I guess pardoned while he was hanging on the cross, removed from the cross, nursed back to health, and then survived.

According to Wikipedia, some people still literally crucify themselves today, I guess as a sort of penitent religious ritual. But it isn't a ritual that will kill them. What they will do is have themselves nailed to a cross I think for a couple of hours with their legs supported, and then they'll get removed from the cross and walk away alive. While this seems like a very passionate, expressive, extreme thing to do, I kinda think maybe these literal crucifiers kinda missed the whole point of Jesus dying (and resurrecting) in the first place: He was crucified so that they wouldn't have to be.

So, the fact that Jesus willingly died in my place via crucifixion -- which is quite possibly the worst, most shameful form of capital punishment in human history -- even though He didn't ever do anything wrong, means that He loves me, to say the least. He wants me so much that He allowed Himself to be sacrificed for me.

Of course, Jesus is the ultimate Overcomer whose life is the best one to follow. Jesus fascinates me. Matthew 26 says that the religious leaders who plotted to kill Him initially planned to do so by trickery. What? You can't trick Jesus. He already knows everything. So, they ended up arresting Him not because of any crime that He committed but because He was betrayed by a friend. Judas Iscariot was a greedy [bleep]hole. Or, as Jesus put it in Matthew 26:24, it would have been better if Judas had never been born. (Hmm. I wonder if "Bohemian Rhapsody" is actually Judas Iscariot's theme song. Mama, just killed a Man...)

Speaking of [bleep]holes, I heard/read somewhere that people who have religious spirits often also deal quite heavily with lust. Many of them will be prudes in public but perverts in private. (I repeat: You can't trick Jesus. He already knows everything.) Hi, my name is Tirzah, and I'm an ex-Pharisee who is in the excruciatingly painful process of impaling her lustful nature and waiting for it to die forever. (Hi, Tirzah.)

While I've been processing my issues, my life, and my past, I sometimes think about a guy who used to play the piano at a church that my birth father pastored. For some reason, this guy had a hard time finding a place to live and a car to drive. So, my dad would pick him up at his apartment where he was living with a girl and drive him to church. This guy was a very good, very experienced pianist, but he would sometimes show up late on Sunday mornings. One time, he was playing the piano while chewing gum during the service.

Are you seeing some red flags? Good.

Eventually, since the piano guy was basically homeless, we allowed him to live in the church building for a while. This worked out fine until somebody was cleaning or working one day in the church building and found naked-man porn in the church bathroom. So, we asked the piano guy to move out of the church building. Years later, I read about him in the archives of the local newspaper. He was still homeless.

Red flags still waving? Yep.

So, a gay musician sins inside a church building and gets a slap on the wrist. I get baptized in the Holy Spirit and get sentenced to major deprogramming. It's official: I was raised by [bleep]holes.

BAH!!!

OK. Glad I got that out.

Anyway, years later, I still find myself appalled by the church piano-guy situation. Maybe I was traumatized about how that guy behaved badly while he was in a position of leadership. There's no telling how many bad spiritual "doors" he opened up inside that church building for all of us to have to deal with later.

I understand now how frickin' easy it was for him to have gotten tripped up by those issues. Lust is something that flourishes and grows like summer-drought wildfire when you're lonely and isolated. BELIEVE ME, I KNOW. So, maybe I've felt a bit traumatized by the whole thing, even years later, simply because I think about the church piano-guy and realize something rather huge: I don't want to become like him. I don't want to be the lone rangerette who gets entrusted with so much important stuff and then just poops on it all when she thinks nobody is watching.

I think in a way, that's kinda what Judas Iscariot did. From what I understand in scripture, Judas Iscariot -- of all people -- was the one who kept the disciples' money. From what I understand, Jesus trusted him with His treasure. Jesus was the only Person in human history who never sinned, never lied, never stole, never betrayed anyone, never did anything wrong, and Judas paid Him back by turning Him in to the religious leaders for 30 lousy pieces of silver. Esau was Isaac's firstborn son, and he willingly gave up his birthright for one lousy bowl of lentil soup. Oh, yeah. I come from a long line of [bleep]holes. I'm no better than they are.

But God, in His mercy and grace, makes all things new.

Isaiah 42:9 is often quoted out of context, which is unfortunate, because it's a fascinating context. The entire chapter is rich with paradox. The beginning of it talks about Jesus and His meekness. Verse 2 says that He won't cry out. Then verse 13 says that He will cry out. In fact, He does beginning in verse 14: "I have held My peace a long time, I have been still and restrained Myself. Now I will cry like a woman in labor, I will pant and gasp at once." All throughout the chapter, this meek God, this shouting God, this gentle God, this passionate God, is all about justice. (I don't think a God of justice would ever be cool with, say, a worship leader sinning in a church building.)

So, these sexual sins that tend to trip up (especially) us musical-creative people... well, they're just a perversion of the natural, physical-creative process that God created. Sure, sometimes while we're sinning, He quietly waits for us to repent (I honestly still don't really understand why He waits, but I think that's just the way He is). Then in due time, He explodes like a full-term pregnant woman and passionately creates something brand-new.

I'm looking forward to my brand-new thing. Metaphorically speaking, I hope it has shiny brown eyes, a kind smile, and looks just like Jesus.

But in the meantime, my flesh has been crucified. I am in the process of waiting for it to die. In a nutshell, I've communicated with it, "Hey, you! You've been doing wrong, but now you must stop. You are going to stop right there until you die. You can squirm and wiggle all you want, but you are about to kick the bucket in a gruesome, excruciatingly terrible way, and then you're going to be ancient history."

Perhaps one reason why I've struggled with lust for so long is because after crucifying my flesh, I've kept taking it down off its cross. I haven't let it fully die. Perhaps not realizing what I was doing, or perhaps deceived, or perhaps in full-blown rebellion, or for whatever reason, I've nursed my flesh back to health, and then it survived, and then it came back stronger than ever before.

I don't want to do that anymore. I want to crucify, impale, kill my "flesh" for good, once and for all, even if it means waiting for several decades for it to die completely.

And while I'm waiting, I might just write a song or two. (Goodbye, everybody. I've got to go. Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth...) 

Floored by a Favoring Non-Thief

I think I need a couple of disclaimers for this post. Firstly, I am writing this in response to the church service that I attended this evening; so if you won't attend my church until tomorrow morning/afternoon, I apologize in advance for any spoilers. Secondly, this will be one of my emo therapy posts; if I feel like cussing, I will censor myself. This blog has become like my journal, so I share some very personal things here, but you are welcome to read them. Thank you in advance for reading, and thank you always for your kindness.

"Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light." (Psalm 36:5-9)

Tonight at church, a worship pastor shared part of Psalm 36 with us (I think these were the verses, in a different version). That part about being under the shadow of God's wings particularly stuck out at me today.

Actually, all of Psalm 36 holds a special place in my heart. Speaking of being under somebody's wing, several years ago, for a very brief period of time, I was being mentored by a lady while I was beginning my crazy-explosive, extensive season of healing. One thing she instructed me to do was to meditate on scripture. The truth of the scripture is supposed to replace whatever lie you've been believing. So, for some reason, I decided to "meditate" on Psalm 36 while I was driving my car on a holiday road trip. I had one of those little Gideon New Testaments/Psalms/Proverbs with me, and I held it open on my steering wheel while I was reading and highway-driving simultaneously.

That was a very unwise thing to do. Yes, I was safe, and yes, I was very happy, and yes, I was having a great time, but anytime I read anything, I need to do so while I'm NOT driving, ya know? But that was a special road trip for me nevertheless.

Unfortunately, I found out later that the lady who was mentoring me was a first-class [bleep]. She ended our mentor relationship quite abruptly, and she rejected me quite overtly and quite mean-spiritedly, even though I couldn't see at the time that she was treating me badly.

Now I understand why. But at the time, she was basically puking junk into my soul, and God had to spend some time scraping it out later.

Please pardon my graphicness, but I'm not sure how else to explain this. Also several years ago, I had what seemed to be a really crazy-long episode of vertigo. (Yes, of course I blogged about it.) When that dizzy spell hit, I was at work, so I had to leave early that day because I was suddenly incapacitated. Miraculously (and with a ton of emergency prayer), I drove myself home. I was about to turn into the parking lot of my apartment complex when I puked all over myself. Also miraculously, I cleaned up after myself -- my clothes and my car. Sometime after that incident, I was still cleaning bits of dried-up puke out of my car (in the steering wheel, etc.). Honestly, I can still see a tiny flick of dried-up puke in my car today, but it's waaaaay up the dashboard on the windshield near the wiper blades, and I'm short, and I keep procrastinating cleaning it up. Or maybe I've just left it there for really weird sentimental reasons. Hmm. I might have to think about that for a while...

Yes, I actually might have to think about whether or not I want to clean a tiny little piece of dried-up puke out of my car. That's just the way I am. I mull over things in my mind quite repeatedly and quite constantly. I'm always thinking about something. That's how I thrive. I'm a meditator. God made me that way. I have to be careful about what I focus on, because I could truly damage myself if I meditate on the wrong thing. He wants me to meditate on Him and His truth. When I do that, it changes my life.

When people puke junk into my soul, sometimes God takes a while to scrape it all out.

I'm a deep person. (The more God heals me up, the deeper I become.) Sometimes when I get hit with major revelations, they have to permeate through multiple layers inside me; they have to soak through multiple layers; they have to echo through multiple inner caverns; they have to brand themselves in multiple places; are you getting the idea? Well, I had one such revelation tonight.

The sermon tonight was about giving -- money, yes, but also about being generous with your time, etc. My pastor talked about God changing our hearts regarding money and regarding generosity, and I had heard that sermon several years before. This year, he said that we would be starting a churchwide giving initiative, and they had printed out ideas -- on fliers that we could pick up after the sermon -- about how to give to your community. So, I thought about my bank account, and I braced myself for God to tell me to give away a whole lot of my money. Instead, God gently reminded me, "I don't want to rob you."

I walked out of the sanctuary and picked up a flier, and I expected it to have a whole lot of money-giving ideas like give $20 to your neighbor just for the heck of it, give $100 to your coworker or something like that. I glanced over the flier, and I was floored. What? No money-giving ideas? Just simple ideas like volunteering at church? I already do that. While I walked to my car, I thought about how humongously gracious God really is compared to what I had thought He was like for many years.

So, I got inside my car -- the one that still has that tiny flick of dried-up puke waaaaay up the dashboard -- and I closed the door and asked God, "You're not a thief?" And I just sat there for several minutes and repeated the question. "You're not a thief?" I think I had believed for many years that He was a thief. The truth, of course, is that He isn't. But I still sat there, in shock, asking, "You're not a thief?"

I drove out of the parking lot, and I played Queen, and I happened to play my favorite Queen song to sing to God during a quiet time, the one that goes, "My money / That's all You want to talk about," and I began to cry. And I was still blubbering, "You're not a thief?"

I think it was a good thing I was alone during this meditative layer-permeating truth episode, because being around other people while this type of thing is happening isn't conducive to a normal conversation. I sound like a 2-year-old during these episodes. But God -- being the Perfect Father that He is -- listened to my obsessive, tear-filled 2-year-old chanting while the truth soaked down into all the layers that it needed to soak into.

Heck, it's still soaking. God is not a thief? Wow.

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (Jesus talking in John 10:10)

Of course, the thief/killer/destroyer that scripture refers to is the devil. God is not only the complete opposite of the devil. God is also a neverending Source of truth, grace, and love that I won't be able to duplicate anywhere else. And He's my Friend. And He's my Helper. And He's my Father.

Tonight, I was thinking about how abusers are basically thieves. An abuser will steal something -- like dignity, innocence, or peace -- that he or she doesn't have any right to take from you.

One way that my birth father abused me was spiritually. He would corner me and puke all kinds of junk into my soul for very extended amounts of time. Of course, God has spent a very extended amount of time scraping it out. Or maybe He's just been healing me by flooring me and pouring His truth into my soul for very extended amounts of time.

Seriously, God is not a thief? Wow.

Another way that my birth father abused me was emotionally. He overtly favored my younger sister instead of me. What really messed me up was when I tried to tell my parents (technically, my birth mother) that they loved her more than they loved me, but this claim was denied. What happens when you see something happening right in front of your eyes, but somebody denies that it's actually happening, even though you actually saw it happen? You wonder if something is wrong with you, and then you go crazy.

Perhaps I was too young to remember this, but I was told that when my younger sister was a baby, my birth father's schedule was so busy that as soon as he would come home from work, my birth mother would put the baby in his arms so that he could bond with her. (Um, hello, what about me?)

Well, he bonded with her, all right. What I do remember, a few years after that, was him tucking her into bed at night on a regular basis. I think he would read the Bible and pray with her. But I don't remember him doing that with me. My birth mother would tell me that these nightly scenes were wrong, but I don't remember my birth father doing anything to make them right. I don't blame my younger sister. She wasn't doing anything wrong. My birth father was just a major [bleep]hole.

Something bad clicked inside me during those nights when my father would spend sweet intimate time with my sister instead of me. He was enjoying time with her in her room, but I was in my room in the dark by myself. This was around the time when I was hitting puberty. I think my soul got the message that if I want deep intimacy with a man, I'm going to have to generate it myself. I believe this was when a certain sin first began to trip me up. (Yes, of course I've blogged about it since then.) Still keeping it vague on purpose, I will say that I'm still fighting it.

Today at church, I was thinking that maybe one way I could fight this sin would be to simply run to my Father, Psalm 36:7-style, and let Him hold me until the temptation goes away. That sounds like such a simple solution. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

Perhaps because I thought God was a [bleep]hole thief who loved on His other children in the other room while I was left alone to deal with life my own way, in the dark.

Seriously, He's not a thief? Wow.

When I think about all that time I spent with all those [bleep]hole people, I feel robbed. There was no reason for me to stick around those first-class jerks. Now I know that I can hang around people who actually love me instead. The One who loves me more than anyone, of course, is God.

I think one reason why He actually allowed me to sin in the first place was so that I could see what He was really like. He's never cornered me to lecture me, and He's never pushed me away. He is not a thief. He is not an abuser. He is not a tyrant.

He is firm, yes. He disciplines, yes. He has extremely high standards, yes. But He is so full of grace that I possibly may never comprehend all of it. Even in our sin, He loves us, He wants us, and He favors us. The Bible says that even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). If anyone has the right to overtly, mean-spiritedly reject us, it's God. But when He adopts us as His children, He's stuck with us for life, and we're stuck with Him for life, and He's our Source of life. He's been showing me that the sins that trip me up are really just symptoms of the wounds that He's in the process of healing anyway. When I sin, yes, I hurt God. But when I repent, we can work on fixing me together. It amazes me how He still wants relationship with me even after I sin. He doesn't want to punish me for falling short. He wants to help me. He just wants me.

Well, He can have me. For life.

Seriously, He's not a thief.

Idle vs. Park

I snapped this photo at my parking lot almost a couple of years ago. Heh, heh, heh. Yeah, I know. My neighbors have a sense of humor.

Last weekend at church, the sermon was about Sabbath and resting. So, I thought I would share my two cents on the subject here. As was observed during the sermon, celebrating the new year tends to be a time when people naturally analyze how they spend their time. Perhaps this post could also be titled "Confessions of a Former Workaholic."

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it." (Exodus 20:8-11)

"At that time Jesus went through the grainfields on the Sabbath. And His disciples were hungry, and began to pluck heads of grain and to eat. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to Him, 'Look, Your disciples are doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath!' ... 'But if you had known what this means, "I desire mercy and not sacrifice," you would not have condemned the guiltless. For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.' " (Matthew 12:1-2, 7-8)

"Now it happened, as He went into the house of one of the rulers of the Pharisees to eat bread on the Sabbath, that they watched Him closely. And behold, there was a certain man before Him who had dropsy. And Jesus, answering, spoke to the lawyers and Pharisees, saying, 'Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?' But they kept silent. And He took him and healed him, and let him go. Then He answered them, saying, 'Which of you, having a donkey or an ox that has fallen into a pit, will not immediately pull him out on the Sabbath day?' And they could not answer Him regarding these things." (Luke 14:1-6)

My birth mother was a slothful, lazy woman, and my birth father was a mega workaholic supreme. So, I basically grew up with two examples of how NOT to work and rest. When I would get sick as a child (which was often), my mother would usually keep me home from school an extra day so that I could "rest," even though I was well enough to return to school, and even though I had already done nothing but rest for a couple of days. After I moved back home as an adult, my father was involved in projects that would occupy his time pretty much 24/7, even on Sundays after he would return home from church. On one such Sunday, while I was taking a shower, he yelled at me through the bathroom door to ask me how much it would cost to mail something to a customer via FedEx. I wish I could tell you that I was gracious to him when I turned off the shower and yelled back a reply, but I was not.

When I finally ventured out on my own permanently as an adult, I identified more with the workaholic side of my gene pool than with the slothful side. I feel very alive when I have something to do. Even if I'm fighting an illness, I get a real rush from getting ready for the day, walking out the door, and driving to work. It's exhilarating. It makes me feel human. Honestly, I think all human beings should feel healthy just from getting out of bed and being human.

But I noticed the unhealthy aspect of my workaholic tendencies a few years ago. I was working at a job that did not pay much at all, but it offered many opportunities for overtime. I had just bought a new car, and I needed to work overtime to make the payments. I would show up for work on Saturday mornings with nobody else around, and I remember thinking that since I didn't have people to spend time with over the weekends, I might as well just go to work. I was covering up my aching loneliness with work.

After a while, an opportunity for freelance writing came along, and I took it. For six months, in addition to working overtime at work whenever it was offered, I was also working a freelance writing job at home until very late at night. I believe I pulled an all-nighter on a couple of occasions. During those six months, I would often work seven days a week straight. I would go to church, but I wouldn't take a Sabbath. That was a mistake. At the end of those six months, I was completely exhausted, and I even blogged here about my exhaustion that New Year's Eve.

When I finally started observing a Sabbath intentionally, God took me through a period where He was training me to rest. Apparently, I didn't know how. I remember on Sunday afternoons, He would instruct me to do nothing for two hours. That was hard for me. It was hard for me to recline on my couch, turn on some reruns of I Love Lucy, and enjoy them for two straight hours. I guess I was feeling guilty about not doing anything. That was pretty extreme.

But sometimes God has to be extreme when He squeezes stuff out of you.

"We hear that some among you are idle and disruptive. They are not busy; they are busybodies. Such people we command and urge in the Lord Jesus Christ to settle down and earn the food they eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:11-12)

I used to have a friend who would call me once or twice a week and talk for at least 45 minutes at a time. She was definitely an idle gossip. By that, I mean that she would talk incessantly about everybody, and she would download every frickin' detail of her life to me over the phone. She would give me way too much information. And I participated in this by listening to it all. But by the time I realized that her behavior was unhealthy, it was too late. The only way to stop her from calling me was to end the friendship.

I was lonely and naïve, so I allowed her to leech off me (and eat up all my time) this way. She was being treated for multiple types of mental illness, so she probably didn't realize how unacceptable her behavior was. She was also very intelligent, but she was on disability because she supposedly couldn't focus on a work task long enough to hold down a job... and yet, she didn't have a problem focusing on 90-minute phone monologues with me.

Going back to the subject of rest, God told me awhile back something that helped me a lot. He said that there is a difference between "idle" and "park." If my car is "idle," it's running, and it's supposed to be taking me somewhere, but it isn't. It's just sitting there running, and it's using up the battery, it's using up my gas, and it's emitting pollutants into the atmosphere. "Idle" is unhealthy. My 90-minute-phone-calling former friend was idle.

On the other hand, "park" is healthy. My car was specifically built with a capability to "park." If my car is parked, that means the engine is off, the battery is resting, my gas is being saved up for the next time I need to use it, and I can take a deep breath and enjoy sitting quietly in my car before I leave it, lock it, and go to work. People have built acres of lots specifically for the purpose of me "park"ing my car in them. Some people even profit from parking lots. Parking your car when you're not using it is very important. If you don't park your car properly, you could endanger yourself and other people. Anytime I observe the Sabbath, I put myself in "park."

So, recovering from being a workaholic has involved me wrestling through the concepts of work and resting. Now I guard my Sabbaths, holidays, and rest time very fiercely.

For example, this past New Year's Eve, my boss planned to close the office at 3:00 p.m. for the holiday. That also happened to be a deadline for us to finish a certain task at work. (I've noticed that we're very laidback about meeting deadlines, which isn't a problem at all because of the nature of our business.) On New Year's Eve at 2:30, one of my supervisors came into my office and announced that her boss had found more deadline-sensitive work that needed to be done. I replied matter-of-factly, "As long as everyone understands that I'm leaving at THREE, I'm OK with that." She laughed and said that the work could wait until Monday.

God has been pretty fierce about guarding my rest time, too, and He's helped me set some major boundaries to separate my rest time from my work time. For instance, my previous job offered one work-from-home day per week (and usually frowned upon you NOT taking it). Working from home chafed my soul like crazy. (I mean, when you're at work, you're supposed to work. When you're at home, you're supposed to rest. Right?) So, after I lost that job and prayed about finding a new one, God very clearly said, "No more of this work-from-home nonsense."

Regarding the Sabbath, I think the Bible is pretty clear that as long as you set aside one day a week for the specific purpose of resting, the way you do so is between you and God.

For me, in this season of my life, it's most natural to observe my Sabbath on Saturday, when I'm exhausted from the work week and don't really feel like doing anything, anyway. What rejuvenates me the most on the Sabbath is getting to spend time with people who I'm close to, but if they're unavailable, I've found other ways to entertain myself. I play my piano keyboard, or I watch opera videos on YouTube, or I watch a music DVD, or I read a Charles Dickens book to myself out loud, and I definitely feed my babies some catnip, and I most definitely go to church. For me personally, the goal during the Sabbath is to do absolutely nothing, and the fact that this goal will be met in a different way every week is very thrilling.

I also still wrestle with being legalistic when observing my Sabbath (because I used to be a fun-killing Pharisee), so I talk to God a lot about what counts as "work" for me to avoid during my Sabbaths. Again, each Sabbath looks a little bit differently to me, but in general, I don't do housework unless it's absolutely necessary. (I save that for Sunday.) And sometimes, depending on what's going on, I'll take my Sabbath on a Sunday instead.

One thing that God instructed me to do on weekends when I'm singing in the choir at church is to take a "double Sabbath." In other words, I guess you could consider practicing music, rehearsing with the choir, and standing for hours on the church platform to be "work," but as soon as I get home, my goal is to do absolutely nothing. That happens two days in a row. And my feet are happy to oblige.

And as I end this particular post, my large cat is idly parked on my arm while I am typing. Heh, heh, heh.