I’m sticking with a video theme for another day.  I heard this one last Wednesday night and now I want to see these two in person.  God given talent on display.  Enjoy!

I Am Yours

Grace and peace.

I’m divorced.  It’s horrible.  It’s tragic.  It hurts me and it has hurt other people in my life.  I know why God says it’s a bad thing.  It is.  Plain and simple.

I was recently talking with a friend who has been taught in the same conservative faith background as me.  His church is wrestling with the issue of divorce and remarriage.  It’s something I understand well having seen how divorced people who had remarried someone else were treated in the church I grew up in.  Not pretty at all.  When I went through my divorce, I expected to be treated differently.  Of course, there are always some who will look down their nose at anyone but my church really reached out to me, love me and held on to me.  This isn’t currently the case in my friends church.  They want to ostracize a woman who is getting remarried.  The want to judge her and everyone involved with the wedding.  It’s sad.

The saddest part is I know that some of the most vocal people are struggling in their marriages.  Instead of finding ways to make their marriages better, they are condemning a result.  The issue is not stopping the result, it’s fixing the problem long before divorce becomes an issue.

I have been berated by someone in my church family for dating.  He told me it was sin and, if I remarried, I would be living in sin until I got out of that marriage.  That line of thinking blows me away.

So, if I get divorced and remarry it is a sin.  However, if I divorce the second woman and go back to being single, it’s not sin anymore.  Huh?  Really?  Christ died for that line of thinking?  Oh, maybe grace covers the second sin but not the first.  Really?

If I extrapolate that idea of “killing” the second marriage to Abraham and Sarah, wouldn’t Abraham have needed to kill Ishmael because he was born from an illicit affair?

What about David?  He can be forgiven for sleeping with a married woman, having a child (who is killed by God so there’s that), kills the woman’s husband and he’s called a man after God’s own heart but if I remarry I continually live in sin.  Really?  The Gospel is that difficult and confusing?

What if I get remarried and have kids?  Then I’m supposed to leave all of them to return to a state of not living in sin?  You must be kidding, right?

Sin is dangerous business, there’s no two ways about it.  I still hate that I’m divorced but accept that I can’t control everything or everybody.  If my spouse was hellbent (no pun intended) on a divorce, all I could do was try to stop it but I’m not a miracle worker.  Still, some churches need to step back and examine their teaching with the totality of God’s word.

The Sermon on the Mount is a perfect illustration of the situation to me.  Jesus told the people they had heard “do not kill” but he told them not to hold anger towards someone else in their hearts.  He told the people they had heard “do not commit adultery” and he told them not to lust.  Maybe, if he would have kept going, he would have said you heard “do not divorce” and then told them not to let their marriages fall into a state of disrepair.  Jesus came to change our hearts, not our actions.  The actions simply follow the heart.  Imagine if Jesus said, don’t get divorced but it’s ok if you can’t stand each other, if you fight, if you never talk, and if you raise up your kids in this environment.  So when he says “do not divorce” in scripture, do you think he’s just referring to the action or is he admonishing people to change their hearts before it gets there?

I pray no one ever has to know the pain of divorce that I have known.

I pray for churches who are there to pray and encourage and hold up those who are scarred by it.

Grace and peace.

I think I suffer from blogging schizophrenia.  Some weeks the words flow.  Some weeks I’m empty.  Some weeks I’m good just to be good.  I feel like a couple of kids when one calls the other a name, “Am not” says one.  “Are too” says the other.  Back and forth.  Back and forth.

My emotions and thoughts are similar.  One day I have a plan to write; a book, letters to my kids, a leadership training program.  The next day, I just want to grab a beverage and watch ESPN and get lost in sports or find a movie and mentally drift away.

Why all this back and forth, fullness and emptiness?  Why is my faith big enough to leap tall buildings one day and small enough to cower in the shadow of a grain of sand the next?

Maybe I am schizophrenic.  Or, maybe I’m just overloaded.

Last weekend I was so frustrated because I didn’t clear my to-do list.  After thinking back over the list, I’m guessing it would have taken most motivated people 5 days to do everything and I wasn’t all that motivated.  Still, I kick myself for not getting it all done because, guess what, it leaves things to do in the future.  I don’t want anything to do in the future.  I don’t want to do laundry.  Or pick up around the house.  Or rake leaves.  I just want freedom.  Freedom to roam.  Freedom to play.  Freedom to be wherever I want to be.

It’s not hard to see the problem.  One, don’t buy a house with 125 trees if I don’t want to rake.  Don’t buy a house big enough for a family of 6 if I don’t want to clean it up.  Don’t buy a dog if I don’t want to worry whether it has enough food and water or will freeze while I’m traveling.  Don’t open multiple bank accounts if I don’t want to run all over town.  Don’t buy lots of clothes if I don’t want to clean them regularly.  Yada, yada, yada.

Every now and then I stop, I take a deep breath, I let it out.  Sometimes I repeat the process.  When I do, I get a moment of peace.  My mind stops racing.  The hamsters quit spinning the wheel.  Time slows down.  I just am.  For a moment, I rest.

I’m sure I need to downsize and decide whether to commit to writing or not writing but, whether I do or I don’t, it only affects me.  No one out there will quit functioning if I choose to quit doing something, to cut back on something, to eliminate something.  Do I hear myself writing this!?

Grace and peace.

The old year is gone and I’m part thankful, part sad.  It was another difficult year in many ways, a year that tested me and drove me to my knees in tears.  It was also a year of learning, growing relationships, testing bonds and creating new things.  As with every year, it came with blessings and disappointments.

So, I look forward to 2014 with hope, wonder, fear and trepidation.  What will the new blessings be?  What obstacles will fall in my way?  I have a new job that could allow me to use so many abilities and gifts I have but it is an unstable environment and I don’t know that it will last long.  My youngest will graduate and then move on to college.  I’m in a new environment and away from my support group and wondering if I will be able to build relationships that sustain me in dark times and celebrate in the light.  I wonder if this is the year I turn the corner in other areas of my life that have been struggles.  Will I write my book?  Will I move?  Will I succeed in the areas I want to succeed?  Will I overcome my fears and weaknesses?  Will I do things I haven’t even dreamed of yet?

Change can be a scary thing but there is always so much hope in the new.  My prayer today is that my focus will remain on hope and that God will answer my pleadings in ways that I can see and that allow me to live in step with him.  And how I hope those steps will be in green pastures and beside still waters instead of climbing another scraggly mountainside.  There is hope.

It’s 2014.  I’m a year older and have a year less to live.  I pray that my time will be put to good things, to growing closer to God, to more quiet meditations and to being an instrument of peace, to bring light into darkness and to help others grow.  I know none of it comes free of pain at times, I just pray the pain leads to awareness and awareness to blessing.

Grace and peace.

A side note to begin…I’ve written over 1,250 blog posts.  Wow.  Number 1,250 was about the spiritual giants I met at Belton Church of Christ.  I think that’s pretty cool.

So Monday (this post will go up on Wednesday) was a difficult day for me.  Tuesday I woke up and was bombarded with Jesus Calling’s devotional for December 10.  I referenced part of it in my last post and will add this from the second paragraph, “Instead of yearning for a problem free life, rejoice that trouble can highlight your awareness of My Presence.”  Well, yuck!  Really, who wants to rejoice about troubles?

There was a day when I said, bring it on Lord, because I cherished the growth I was experiencing in my mind and in my heart.  Today, I’m asking the Lord for a respite.  At the same time, there is someone in my life who is desiring growth and it’s hard for me to encourage them to grow while wanting to take a break myself.

Back to the story, I read Jesus Calling then turned on iTunes radio and the first song is Praise You In This Storm by Casting Crowns.  Well, isn’t that unfortunate.  I didn’t catch the title of the next song but it was about everything falling apart by Sidewalk Prophets.  Well, that was unfortunate too.  You see, I needed a song about everything being easy and the storms being behind me.  Then, I heard Laura Story sing Blessings before I walked out the door and My. BRAIN. IS. ON. OVERLOAD.  What are you trying to tell me God?

Give it a listen here…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CSVqHcdhXQ and here’s a version with lyrics…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMeFzFUbmJo

I don’t want to miss God’s blessings.  I really don’t.  I want some peace and comfort but I may need to accept that peace and comfort is often disguised.

I need to return to my simple prayer I prayed when my world first crumbled before me.  “Lord, open my eyes to see what you want me to see.  Open my ears to hear what you want me to hear.  Open my mouth to say what you want me to say.  If I do this Lord, it will be a good day.  Amen.”

Grace and peace.