Who Are You

Several years ago, I was hanging out with some friends and one of them shared with me she wanted to confess something to me.  She stated that awhile back, she and others she was with, had allowed their conversation to turn to talking about me, along with some other staff wives, in a very negative, hurtful way.  She hesitated to tell me what had transpired, but her desire to ask for my forgiveness outweighed her discomfort.  I kept telling myself I should be angry, but I really just appreciated seeing Matthew 18, otherwise known as the forgiveness chapter, fleshed out. As I look back on it, it always sticks out to me as a time where you find yourself wondering if people are being the same to your face as they are when you are not around.  And, lest you “go there” in your thinking and finger-point, trust me…I’ve been the offender, too.  I do not think any of us can say that we’ve always been on the up and up in our speech.  Most often we manipulate our speech to put the good spin on things so that, God forbid, anyone ever think horribly of us.  I mean, come on, I like for people to like me, don’t you?  This moment defined for me, however, that the very part of me that I want to most be – just to be REAL – is most often the hidden part of everyone with whom we come in contact.  In my last post, even, this was the heartbeat – just loving people right, exactly where they are.  Being yourself, being real, being vulnerable and even being our most ugly selves are all a part of this.  The more we practice being who we really are, the more those around us are challenged to really, genuinely LOVE us right where we are.  It’s a win, win.

Just the other day, one of our partners came in the church as I was working.  I asked her the usual, “How are you,” and I waited, playing the game with myself I always play…that moment where I wonder, “Will she really tell me how she is”?  It was then that the rare thing happened.  She actually told me how she really was, and truth is, she was not doing well.  She was tired, had a lot on her mind and just completely at the end of her rope, but she didn’t hide it.  I told her how refreshing it was to actually have someone be honest enough to tell me how they are really doing…and, yet, so rare!  I don’t know about you, but I want to be a trailblazer.  I want to trail-blaze the way to break molds, crush stereotypes and just accept people for who they are, right where they are.  It’s honestly the singular, most difficult thing for me as a pastor’s wife.  I lived for so long hiding who I really am from others.  I was afraid to let anyone see me for me…the me that doesn’t always like being assumed I love my life, or being put down because I actually do love my life… and the result of that has left me exhausted, with “I’m a people pleaser” tattooed on my forehead.  As I began to embrace letting others see the real me, the result hasn’t always been what I’ve expected, but I’m no longer living in the shadows of people’s expectations of what they think I should be, but I’m living in the reality of who I am.  I’ll warn you, I sense people talk more about me now that I’m letting them see all sides of me than ever before, but the difference is, this time they mostly say it to my face.  I want no accolades in life, but only to be like the woman who came in my office this week – I want to just be who it is I am.  Sometimes I’m

Agitated

Compassionate

Apathetic

Tenderhearted

Say words that are kind

Say word that are bad

Don’t do what you want me to do just because you want me to do it

In the shadows holding the hand of the one no one else will touch

Undisciplined

Disciplined

Feel excluded

Exclude others

Passionate

Hard-hearted

Friendly

Annoyed

I really could fill the page with my polar opposite self descriptions.  I’m all over the place, but I live with an expectation that you will love me for who I am, because, despite your imperfections, I certainly love you – while you make it difficult for me to do so, I’m no different from you that way.  Loving is the center.  It’s the right place where life may look incredibly messy, but be incredibly right.  The journey to love deeply, and without discrimination is not easy, but worth the fight.  Times like being talked about, to coming into contact with someone who will be real with you will both shape you.  What’s your starting place?  Do you need to forgive yourself before you can be yourself?  Do you need to forgive someone else?  Take the bull by the horns and be who are were created to be.  Don’t have it all figured out. Don’t hide who you are to be what others expect.  Today, just start by being you.

Just Sit Back And…

My husband often says, “If you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you’ve always gotten.”  I’ve heard him say it so much that it’s probably been one of those things that has not truly translated into my heart as it should have.  Sometimes it takes a series of events, trials, too much time on my hands for a truth I’ve heard all of my life to really sink in.  This has been the case for me lately.  The thing is, the single most important thing for me in my life as a Christ-follower is to truly take on the person of Christ in every single thing I do.  I honestly don’t really know what that always looks like because I’m also detoxing from a lot of religion I’ve acquired along the way in my journey.  I muddle through most of my life, having a stellar moment of “Yeah, I got it” from time to time, but for the most part my life has been pretty characterized by making the learning process a whole lot harder than it has to be.

ONE WORD came into my life at a time where the reality had hit me that boy, did I have a ton of detoxing to do from religion. I longed for the simple. That reality was a sweet one because it was one of those “I know I’ve been looking for peace, but where is the peace to be found” moments.  The freedom I found in throwing off religion and learning to walk the Jesus Way, to be honest, was ten million times less rule-filled.  Finally, I could breathe…that is, until I decide to go off and complicate things again.  This time, though, I’ve learned that within the complicating of life, is also the beauty in it. You see, in that beauty is held the process of getting there.  I’m learning to embrace it.

I’m totally NOT a person to make resolutions.  The way I see it is you can either resolve to keep them and let’s be honest, we also resolve to break them.  I need something to rest on, park myself there and dig in.  For me, it’s always been the refreshment to my soul to just have this ONE WORD I’ve focused on all year.  This year, however, I found myself having clearly been given a word, but I couldn’t bring myself to speak it, much less write about it.  I only told my husband, and even then it was with guarded language that more or less said to him, “Don’t you dare hold me accountable to this.”  My life…our lives…have been a target ground for some fiery darts for about the last three to four months.  We lead a church, and we’ve spent most days ourselves under personal attack of the mind and heart, or we have watched those we deeply love battle the same.  It has sucked and it has sucked the life out of me.  I’ve had more days of throwing my hands in the air, waving my fist at the enemy, and even God, too,  just resolving to give up (see my hang up with resolutions).  I have basically been functioning under an “I’m done” mentality.  Don’t ask me to be there for you.  Don’t you dare expect me to have the right answer.  And please, oh, please, don’t be needy.  I have nothing to give.  I am empty.  Voicing my ONE WORD seemed too much for me because voicing it would mean I would have to actually work at it…focus on it.  So, in my complicating of it…again…came what always comes – peace.  See, my word is:

Listen

Don’t go thinking, “Wow, you picked an easy one”.  I did not.  Not for me.  I want to be doing something, digging into things.  Even in my complicating of life, digging in and working masked my denial that I’m not OK.  If I could focus on busying myself then I wouldn’t have to think about the things I have to work on.  This concept of listening is hard for me.  It strips me of living in my role of always being expected to have the right answer, to be a voice in others’ lives, to have to always have a word.  When I finally muddled through the process of getting it, therein lies the peace.  I finally got that within the listening came the doing (James 1:22).  All of this being put out with being there for others, having to hear them need me to say something to them resulted in me forgetting how to listen.  The obvious spiritual answer is I’d forgotten how to listen to God, and that’s true…I had.  I thought I was listening because, doggone, I was desperate for Him to speak to me in the midst of the attack I’ve been under.  I was trying to hear Him so hard that I wasn’t really hearing a thing.  Then, there were my kids.  I have four of them and they are all girls.  Girls like to talk.  I stopped listening.  Then, even before I grasped this ONE WORD for me for 2013, I started listening and I heard pleas for them to be heard – from me, from their friends.  One was lonely.  One was too busy and it was catching up with her.  One felt bullied at school.  One just needed her mommy to have a tea party with her and her mommy stopped listening.  I became desperate to listen to my girls…to really hear their hearts.

So, here I find myself, wanting to refuse to give my ONE WORD, yet unable to shut my mouth one more time before I settle into really listening this year.  This doesn’t mean I won’t be doing, but my heart is resting on listening, and allowing the doing – the what I’m really supposed to be doing….and not doing what others expect me to do or what I even put on myself to do. It’s doing something different in order to break the cycle of getting what I’ve always gotten. It’s peace for me.  Living the simple.  I’m giving myself permission to breathe…and I really, really like it.

The Crud

In my neck of the woods, when we’ve got the headache, sniffles, and runny nose we call it the “crud.”  We take the necessary precautions to get over it – meds, rest, lots of fluids, but unfortunately you just have to keep rolling with it.  Gotta work, gotta take care of the kids, gotta live life!  It stinks to not be able to lock ourselves in a room and never come out until we’re over it, but “ya gots to do what ya gots to do”.

I’m finding more and more that many are approaching their walk with God like the “crud”.  They want to just basically stop living until they get over their little funk, blah times in their journey with God.  They’ll distance yourself from others, stop serving where God put them, and attempt to suspend time until they get over it. Stop living under the guise of “waiting on a word from God.”  Have you been there? I have.  I’m totally driven toward being a quitter, because when I quit living for a little bit, I’ve rationalized (in my mind) that it’s giving me a blank slate to get a do-over, start fresh.  That’s great…sometimes…but really not the example of how Jesus lived life.  He’s told us…

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

He doesn’t say, “Stop living and come get me when you’re ready to live again.”  He says, “Let me take the load off.  Let me be your strength to make it through the day.”  He even gave us the example.  He never stopped loving people when people just…well, they didn’t love Him.  In the face of persecution, ridicule, extreme fatigue and a host of other oppositions, Christ walked through it…not around it.  Be encouraged today…you are NOT alone.  Others have walked through the crud, too.  Hey, I’ve walked through it, and you know…I’d have it NO other way.  Walking through it showed me God’s strength that He could still use me, despite my funk, to love others…to lead them…to relate to them. It’s those very steps by which I walked out of it! You see, when others are going through stuff, they want to know you can relate – that when you say you know what they are going through, you really do know what you’re talking about.  Listen, I’ve had every reason in this world to just stop serving…to stop loving.  Did I? No, I really didn’t.  I chose to walk through it, and by walking through it I allowed God to shape me.

What are you dealing with today? Are you suffering from the crud? How are you handling it? Follow our best Example.  He never gave up, and now He never gives up on YOU!

My Trip to the Grocery Store

If you know me well at all, I’ve pretty much always looked at my trips to the grocery as an adventure.  Early on as a new mom, I often found myself  as excited as a puppy with a new bone when I got to go to the store.  Seriously, it was like the only time I got out of my house alone!   The grocery store experience has oddly enough been a great source of teaching for me, too.  I tend to watch people a lot when I’m shopping.  I guess, for me, the grocery store has always been a huge source of social interaction for me.  Not getting out too much in those early parenting days, the grocery store became my mission field.  If I was going to share Jesus with anyone, it would probably be at the store.  All that said, how I treat those who serve me at the store has been a huge focus for me.  I try to treat them as I want to be treated.

I took a very big trip to the store yesterday.  We had just gone on vacation, and I had let everything pretty much run out at our house, so this trip was a TWO buggy trip once all of it was bagged.  The bagging of my groceries became a teaching lesson for me, though. Who knew? Right in the midst of trying to get out of the store, God showed me a very clear, simple word…a word that is not new to me, but a very significant reminder, nonetheless.  It’s been said,

Excellent people exceed expectations

Unfortunately, I wish I could say the young man bagging my groceries exceeded expectations in his job yesterday.  As he loaded up half of my groceries (someone else did the first part) into the two buggies, he looked at me and asked, “Do you think you’re gonna need help getting these to your car?” Ummm…let me see…(The picture of me dragging a buggy and pushing a buggy as I wore a rather long maxi dress played out in my mind – an image, I might add, had me laid out on the pavement after only a few steps, tripping over that long dress)…”YES, I need your help, seeing as I have two carts of groceries…your help would be nice.”  I chalk this up to “he’s just a youngin’ and doesn’t know better” and we head out to my car.  Once at my car, he turns to me and asks with a rather pained look on his face, “Are you gonna want me to unload these into your car?”  Ummm…while I am admittedly particular about how my groceries are loaded in, the task of two buggies overwhelmed me in that horrible South Carolina heat, along with my rather skewed perception that this was, after all, his job.  Let me pause here and say, before you write me comments about sounding snooty that this was his job, let’s think about this…it was, indeed, his job.  So, let’s move on.  I said, “Yes, I would really appreciate your help today, but I tell ya what…I’ll unload on this side and you unload on that side, OK?” “K.”  So, we set off, unloaded the groceries into my car and it was done.  As I drove home thinking about this experience, which really is insignificant in the bigger picture, I thought a lot about how I just try to get by with very little effort.  A lot of this thinking starts with…ME!  What do I think about myself?  Do I value my worth…that I have something to contribute?  I do believe that the bag boy at the store was young, and that alone doesn’t determine his lack of work ethic for the rest of his life, but I do believe that that young man needs to step it up and put a little more heart into it.  The Bible says to the Christ-follower, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart…”Colossians 3:23a.  We may think what we contribute to the Body of Christ is not significant, but that’s not what God says to us.  He just wants us to do our best, and doing our best will be our excellent! What we tell our kids about doing their best often never penetrates our own hearts.  I’ve talked to my girls lately about doing everything without complaining or arguing (Philippians 2:14).  Why?  I want them to grow up to be excellent human beings.  Their future employers, for one, will thank me.  I want them to know that when we grumble and complain about every. single. thing that we look like a very. little. human.  This is a lesson for me, too.  When we do everything we set our mind to with excellency of heart, then the small task doesn’t seem so small.  It looks like a greater piece of the bigger picture.

I read this the other day…”Watch out for that girl…She may change the world.”  With a do whatever it takes, excellency mentality we can then say, “You must do the thing you think you cannot do.” (anonymous)  Training ourselves to do the best we can will open up doors for us that we never thought we were capable of opening.  What attitude or work ethic do you need to change today to begin to function with excellency? What’s holding you back?

High Flyin’

Not only has my husband been away for the past week, but yesterday I sent my oldest daughter, McKenna, off to Student Life Camp Daytona for 5 days.  This is her first experience away at any overnight camp/trip.  Some asked me if I was nervous to let her go.  I wasn’t.  Part of it is just the fact that by McKenna’s age I had already traveled overseas, hopped airplanes by myself to fly to boarding school, and even flied back with my sister to the States without my parents.  It wasn’t even on my radar to be nervous to let her go.  An even bigger part of it, though,  is my heart’s desire to give my girls wings to soar, and sometimes that means that I have to let them fly on their own.  That part is a little harder to do because it entails a whole lot of trust – trust with spending money, with their actions when they are not under Mama’s gaze, that they’ll take the experience seriously, etc.  That part is harder, but for me, watching them go off to have life experiences is so much more rewarding.  There is a huge degree of watching your child have life experiences that involves watching them fail, or have difficulty in the process.  It’s hard to not take control.  Taking control may mean the difference between letting God do His thing, or Mama taking over when she needs to just be still!

As I sent McKenna off yesterday, my desire for her was not just this component of trust and responsibility, but it was also to encourage her to take this experience, which would certainly be a  spiritually high time in her life, to motivate her to fly high consistently.  We’ve probably all had a time in our lives that we have called a spiritual high.  You come back from a mission trip, conference or camp and feel like you can change the world.  Nothing can stop you.  Then you have a bad day…life gets in the way…and you feel like instead of you changing the world, the world has conquered you!  The thing is…you can totally change the world, but what do you do when the bad days come and life seems to swallow you up?

I wrote McKenna a series of letters to read while she is away, and what I wanted most for her to take away, and you today as you read this, is let Christ control every aspect of your life.  From the big to the small, fly high because your soaring with Him, not on your own.  I read this in my quiet time this morning….

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:2 MSG

 

How easy is it when everyone else is feeling the spiritual high that we feel it, too?  There’s nothing wrong with that.  We are encouraged to spur one another on. But what happens when no one’s around to pump up the party with us anymore?  That’s where the encouragement of this verse kicks in.  God is calling you to be uniquely you.  He’s calling you in the little, everyday decisions and the big decisions of life to not be like everyone else because….here’s the kicker…you’re NOT like everyone else when you’re His child.  The pressures of this world are always vying for our attention, leading most times to our downfall if we allow it.  What I love about this verse is the word “develops”.  Developing is a process.  It takes time, discipline and intentionality.  Times like going away for youth camp or conferences contribute to the process of becoming set apart.  What about you?  Do you find yourself living for the Sunday to Sunday high? What I mean is, do you just look to have another spiritual, Sunday church high experience to fuel you, or are you in the process, turning over every decision, circumstance, area of your life to let it develop you?  I loved what Pastor Hayden shared with us while he filled in for my husband Sunday.  He said our faith is real and living when we discipline our daily decisions.  That’s the whole enchilada, people.  Turning it all over to Him to is what changes us from the inside out.

I so want you to find your spiritual high.  My prayer for you today is that you find it and it soars you to heights you’ve only ever imagined!

“But those who wait upon God get fresh strength. They spread their wings and soar like eagles, They run and don’t get tired, they walk and don’t lag behind.” Isaiah 40:31 MSG

Absent

Name after name the teacher called.  “Amy Cashion”…I said, “PRESENT.” “Tonya Smith” …”PRESENT.” And so on and so on she called out the names of all of my classmates.  One or two times she may answer for the missing student, “ABSENT.”

For the past few days, the roll call in my family has had one absence.  My husband, Jeff, has been away on a trip to Tanzania with Compassion International.  It’s one of these opportunities that you don’t let pass by – a rare chance to peek inside this organization as they reach countless families for Christ.  I couldn’t be happier that he has this time.  For this MK (missionaries’ kid) I hope that not only Jeff, but our whole family have opportunity after opportunity to travel to foreign land with the Gospel.

Jeff’s absence has had me thinking…a LOT!  I have found the time at night when he is home and we are normally spending time together being spent more with my girls and lots more in prayer.  I have become increasingly aware of God’s presence with me.  Jeff and I always say that time away has always been one of the healthiest things, not only for our marriage, but also for us spiritually.  Change of scenery, circumstance, surrounding experiences all contribute to what our hearts are often crying out to have…more of God.  Being a mom, I often find concentrated time alone with God very rare and I have, over the years, learned to focus more on seeing the quality in the time I have.  We all go through the times of getting up earlier (before the kids awaken) or adjusting our schedules in other ways to focus more on God. We even say, “My prayer is to focus more on God.”  In the time I’ve had this week to myself, God has never been more present, more real, more accessible to me…in every second of the day.  This week, on top of a spouse away, I’ve been sick for the first time in a couple of years.  I put off going to the doctor and attempted to treat my symptoms at home…until I woke up yesterday morning and there was no denying it…I needed a doctor!  Life is always throwing you curveballs.  The planner in me had all sorts of things on the “to-do list” I wanted to get done while Jeff was away.  Instead, God gave me time …something my heart often longs for and yet wastes when I have it.

As I read from my Bible plan this morning, my heart was literally enveloped in peace as I read “Watch for this-a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son; They will name him Emmanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).” Matthew 1:23. Yes, scripture I’ve read time and time again, but jumped off the page at me…God is with us.  In times of being alone, in a crowd of people, in chaos, in calm…He is with us.  When we feel like He couldn’t possibly want to be with us, He is.  When we don’t have time for Him, He has time for us.  When we had a plan that yes, included time with Him, He gives us even more of Him.  Sometimes it just takes looking around to see He is always with us!

Do you need the comfort today of knowing He is with you?  No matter where you are, what you are doing, where you are going – God is with you.  He’s not a part of who you are, where you are, or standing at the arm’s length distance we’ve made Him be.  He’s with you!  At the class roll call, His name is always marked “PRESENT.”

Your Name

Father, Dad, Daddy, Papá…Just a few names that I’ve called my own Daddy.  It’s funny how you call your Dad a different name according to your mood…kinda like when I would get in trouble and my parents would yell out, “Amy Denise” get in here RIGHT NOW!!!”  For the times I feared trouble, I would say “Father.” For the times I was too grown up to say ‘Daddy’, I would say, “Dad”.  The time of living overseas, I would call him “Papá” mostly in jest.  But my favorite name for my father is “Daddy” because in it holds safety, security and comfort.  He becomes the man that has the answers, tells me it’ll all be OK and the teller of the best jokes (“Oh, Daddy!”).

I’ve had the benefit of having a lot of strong fathers in my life.  My own Daddy led our family with conviction, sacrifice and deep love.  He modeled for us how to be a person that cared for others.  He gave up a lot to see that we had the best.  He drove my sister and me 12 hours away to boarding school in Venezuela to make sure that we had the best education and social experience for our high school years.  He let someone else – our dorm fathers- have care over us and he accepted only seeing us every 9 weeks when we would go home.  He let us grow up before we really had to grow up.  To some, that would seem a little extreme, but for us we saw a Dad with great character, committed to a calling on his life, and still doing what was the best thing for us.  Sometimes, being a dad requires tough decisions.

I’ve had two extraordinary grandfathers in my life.  Both of them taught me to smile.  I don’t remember one memory that doesn’t include laughing with them.  They worked hard, but they played hard, too!  They were men that were loved by many.

I’ve had uncles that had to be my Dad for a season of my life.  I have lived with two of my aunts and uncles.  While my family still lived overseas, they took care of me when home from college.  I look back over that season of my life and I see both uncles that worked very hard, reminding me how important a good work ethic is.  I have memories of walking in the door to one of my uncles pouring over his Bible.  I’d never seen anyone soak it in like him.  That changed me alot.  When I returned to college, I remember digging in to the Word for myself and it became more alive to me than any other time I can remember.  I’m thankful for two men that gave me a place to live, but more than that, a sense of home.

Then I married, and I don’t know of another gift I’ve been giving in my life than to see my husband become a father for the first time…and a second…a third…and a FOURTH!  I get to share my life with a man that loves his girls deeply, points them to Jesus and genuinely shares his life with them.  As a result, he has four Daddy’s girls that worship the ground he walks upon.  They call him “Daddy” most everyday, or “Da-da” when they are feeling particularly child-like, and “Dad” has even begun to make an appearance, making that day they all grow up seem even closer.

The Father of all Fathers is seen in each of the men with whom I’ve been blessed to share my life.  They’ve each pointed me to the very heart of who God is….LOVE.  Today, I honor each of you that I’ve at some point felt like your daughter.  To my Daddy, thank you for loving me enough to give me a life that compares to none other.  For being a man that would follow God’s calling everyday of your life, I am so grateful.  For my husband, I fall more and more in love with you just by watching you be a Dad.  Thank you for all you do to take care of us, but most of all, for loving us with a love deeper than we’ve ever known.  Happy Father’s Day!

Just a Drink

Over the past two weeks at LifeSong, my husband has been preaching a series of sermons entitled, “SIMPLE.”.  Admittedly, when he told me the title, I thought, “I’m the Queen of Simple…What have I got to learn?”  Ever been glad you didn’t say something out loud?  Well, I sure was glad I kept that to myself.  Sure, I can look back over my life and see characteristics of living a simple life, but does it define me? Nope!

Last year, Jeff and I were both greatly influenced by the book Crazy Love by Francis Chan, and I know we weren’t the only ones.  It has impacted many lives.  For us, it moved us to this point of asking ourselves, “Are we living simply? And really, what does that mean?” A big decision for us was to put our house up for sale and trust God…simply…not really knowing, or understanding why. We did that.  We put a sign in our yard, “For Sale by Owner” and knew God would take care of the rest.  Nothing had felt more right.  Along came an opportunity to have a Realtor take over our efforts and her generosity to help led us to remove that sign that God has asked us to put out front and thus pretty much removing the faith and trust He asked us to have when we put it out there.  Sure, we’ve had people in and out of the house.  We’ve had hope they would buy, but today we sit in a house with no sign at all out front, and hearts that are at an impasse.  I could go into a long story as to why we don’t have that sign out front right now.  The reasons are legitimate, but the fact remains…We moved from His power to doing things in our own power.  Does selling a house really signify a simple life?  No, I don’t believe it does.  I could share other stories of God moving me personally, or Jeff and I together, to a place of simple faith.  What it does signify is one thing that could be removed to move us back to a place of generosity.  You see, generosity is the place where I understand the heart of God the most as it pertains to me.  In that place of giving…my time, my resources, my…ummm…inconvenience…it becomes less about me and more about Him.  As Jeff said yesterday, “You can give without loving, but you can’t love without giving.”  How often has it been easy for me to give just because that is typically my nature, but all of those times haven’t been defined by love.  When I look back on the times powered by love, it’s there that the world makes sense.  It’s there that I am fueled, recharged.  It’s there that I see the heart of God.

Jesus answered, “If you knew the generosity of God and who I am, you would be asking me for a drink, and I would give you fresh, living water.” John 4:10 MSG

It’s no coincidence that I read this verse before I attended service yesterday at LifeSong.  I felt that moment of “Ugh” and saw the many roads away from that generosity of God that I had traveled.  That far distance I’d traveled away brought one word to mind…Complicated. The one word that I thought of when I rested in His generosity…Simple.  It’s that moment of the ton of bricks being lifted off and you can breathe.  How often have I just overcomplicated life when my Father says, “If you just trust me…rest in me…you could ask for anything!”  We sell Him short in our requests, like He’s not big enough.

As I read in my Youversion.com reading plan today, “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This is not a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in.” Luke 11:10 MSG.  Here He is reminding me…reminding you…of the generous God He is.  We need to look around for Him to be found.  He’s there already….giving us every. single. thing we need.

Have you been like me, at times, and just overcomplicated that which He has made simple?  What is He asking you to do to trust Him?  Are you finding the answer in loving others in generosity? If not, why not?

I don’t know what the next step is for me in what God will ask me to do.  I know, though, that I don’t want to settle for a “drink” over the “fresh, living water.” Plain and Simple.

Name Your Price

I love to go to yard sales.  Before I even knew what a yard sale was, I had very developed bargaining skills.  Growing up in Venezuela, I learned to wheel and deal to get the best price for just about anything you could possibly buy in a store, market or vendor. When I finally moved back to the States and learned that people actually sell their stuff every Saturday in their front yard and you could…BARGAIN…you can imagine that I found myself a new hobby! Now, if you know me personally, you know I can sniff out a deal!  Just yesterday, I got a new bathing suit top for $4.98!  OK…tangent!! Anyway, it makes my heart race and the adrenaline kicks in when I can save some pennies.  I say, “Give me the best for the cheapest price possible!”  My sister and I laugh over how neither of us can just graciously accept a compliment that someone likes our new shirt without having to tell them how very little we paid for it!

If you’re not being treated with love and respect, check your “Price Tag.” Perhaps you have marked yourself down. It’s “YOU” who… tells people what you’re worth by what you accept. Get off the “CLEARANCE RACK” and get behind the glass where they keep all the “VALUABLES.” Bottom line is, “VALUE”…… yourself more! 

I read these words yesterday as I scrolled through status updates on Facebook. I told my friend I was going to steal these words and she said she stole them from another friend! Ha!  Deep words, especially for women, I believe, as we seem very intent on finding our worth in what others say, if we feel/are pretty enough, or have popularity.

Aren’t we kind of like that with our lives?  Don’t we kind of try to sell ourselves for as little as possible?  We kind of let others determine our value.  It becomes that we think we are worth something if a man says we are, or if we have a ton of friends, or if we are skinny enough(and a whole lot of other reasons).We become cheap versions of what God wants us to be when we start looking to imperfect people to determine what we are supposed to be.

Where do you find your value?  Have you become satisfied just being on “clearance”?  Are you allowing others to determine your value? Do you know that God thinks you are worth it?

Today, my prayer is that you will know that you ARE worth it.  Don’t let life pass you by in allowing others to determine your value.  The only thing worth bargaining for is piece of jewelry at a Saturday yard sale.

Target

When I attended a private school in Caracas, Venezuela one of the activities we had to do for PE one semester was archery.  Now, if you know me at all, I probably don’t look like the archery type (is there an archery type? an archery outfit you wear), but I was surprisingly good…surprising to me!  I found it to be somewhat therapeutic.  I hated that school with a passion and maybe, just maybe, I imagined I was hitting one of those mean kids with an arrow.  It was better to imagine than the alternative, right?  Anyway, I digress…

So anyway, you ever had one of those moments when things just come together and make sense?  In our current series at LifeSong Lyman, “Simple,” my husband made a statement Sunday that did just that for me.

“You can miss your life by striving for someday.”

Ouch!  I’ve done that!  Well, I’ve spent a whole lotta my life doing that!  It hurt to hear it, for me, that day, because I don’t want anyone else to miss any life by striving for their someday.

During the same time of my life as my archery days I missed out on a lot of life by simply not standing up for myself.  There really were mean kids at that school. There really were days that I hated life.  There were days that I let those kids walk all over me and call me nasty names, make fun of me as a Christian, and criticize what I wore.  I just missed life by not standing up for myself, believing the things they said about me and living to meet their approval over God’s.

Here, 25 years later, I sometimes still live this way, just on a more adult level. Ha! I let circumstances, trials and the mundane determine my days. I stop living and I start saying, “Someday I’ll make a change.”  The somedays pile up and then you wake up one morning to realize that goals were lost, memories were not made and you feel…tired!  I don’t like waiting on someday to come for today to matter, do you?  We fail at our goals, we live in the same vicious cycle, and for some reason we stop aiming for the target.  We give up on our hopes and dreams and resign ourselves to “I’m just a failure, so I’ll stay that way. It must be what I was made for.” Pah-leeeez!

Where have you stopped aiming for the target?  Which areas of your life have you heard yourself say more, “Someday I’ll…” rather than, “I’m gonna make today count”?  Don’t sell yourself short.  God has you here for a reason.  If you’re His child, He’s got you here to be a difference-maker.  Maybe it’s to be the best mom you can be, or to be the love of your husband’s life, or to be the CEO of a company where you can show Christ’s love, or maybe it’s to care for the special needs child that visits your church and needs someone to shadow them and give them the same experience as any kid there, and even maybe it’s to be the Pastor’s wife that ignites a passion in others to be all they can be…anything they want to be.  The point is…START LIVING!  Look around you…take a second and do it…are things really so bad that you can’t find one, single place to start living your fullest potential? My guess is NO, there’s not.  Find your mark and shoot straight for it.  Hey, maybe you’re like me and you’ll surprise yourself.  You might just be a good shot!