HOT COCO!

 
   Last time I shared it was about this amazing (like greatest of my life experience, you should go back and read the last 2 post kind of amazing) exchange with Jesus. I finally stopped trying to "get over" being molested. As I looked at Jesus on the cross, He absorbed a life time of pain. Through His resurrection power, He HEALED me! So much better than "getting over it!"
      I came home from this wonderful timely woman's retreat and.........I really couldn't tell you what I did in the three weeks after. I just kind of stopped in my walk with God. Like, that was amazing I'll take a break now.  The only problem is healing is a journey not a destination, said my wise friend Rebecca!
      I didn't even know there was a problem until my husband asked if he could speak to me in our room for a minute. I was a wreck. I looked it and I felt like it.
     He sat me down and said, "Jess, is there something I have done or could do to help? You seem really unhappy." I burst into tears! I was unhappy. I just had this massive healing in my life, one of those things that you think if that ever gets fixed I bet everything in life will be fine. Silly girl, that isn't real life! I told him what was in the deepest of my heart. "I am the heaviest I ever been. Nothing fits and I had to buy a bigger size sweat pants just to have something to wear. I don't feel attractive or lovely and I don't think it will ever change." My husband was gentle but he also knows he can speak the truth with me and I will receive it. He called it was it was, I "gave up." I stopped taking care of myself and it was showing big time. He said, "Babe, have you looked in the mirror today (it was gentle and loving), I don't want to be rude but you really look like you just rolled out of bed and you went grocery shopping and came home ready to kill our kids." I cried some more. I knew he was right and it was time to put on the big girl panties and let God work on me. This idol of eating for comfort has been like a whole other family member around here. It was time to break up. This habit of neglecting myself, and overindulging was again being wore on the outside.
     My man said, why don't you take a shower, put some make up on and go do something you would like to do by yourself.
     I did. I stepped into the shower and as if the water was grace and Jesus washed away the old. I got dressed and went to Macy's and bought a few items of clothing that were not sweats. I went to Barns and Noble next and purchased my little brother a birthday card and sat and wrote in it how much I love him and miss him. (something I used to do often) I even changed into my new cloths in the bathroom at B&N because I WAS new and I wanted to wear it. I had no proof that I was new yet. It had only been 2 hours since He had rinsed off  the "gave up." I did however have new insight on Him. This One that washes with His grace. Remember, It was just three weeks ago that He healed me from my greatest wound. Suddenly this monster idol had nothing on Him.  I'm mean after all it was like 6 years younger that the big wound! (I started the food struggle around 17).
     Every morning after that day, I would shower first thing, put make up on and snap a picture for my man. He would encourage and tell me how proud he was of me and thank me for not giving up. PS. It matters to husbands that their wives look their best and take care of themselves and that's a good thing.
     Little by little I would look at my life habits with food and exercise and ask God what was good and what needed to go. He lead me to a ministry called Revelation Wellness. They have an 8 week bible study and accountability time that I could do. Yes! I believed that God said this is it. But it was expensive for our budget. So I waited and did what ever the Lord said to do about taking care of His house (my body). Then the study went on sale! I got to start the study! Then I had to restart cause I didn't humble myself the first time. This shower in grace and forward motion of obey coupled with His word has been transforming.  I am down 6 lbs. but more excitingly is the fact that I don't crave my old idols like I used to. I crave and am begging to practice the presence of God! So much more filling and so much better for me!
     There was one afternoon that educating our kids was getting long and trying. My normal mode of dealing would have been to reward myself with some sort of sweet hot drink because after all I need a pat on the back to simply walk in my calling, right? Blahhh! So I looked for a mug and chose hot chocolate. I already had 3 cups of coffee so maybe something different. I was about to pour the hot water into my mug and Jesus said, "No, Jess, choose ME. " I literally picked up the mug and said to it, "No!" I had this amazing release. I didn't have to do it. I don't have to sin. I know it may sound extreme that I am calling a cup of coco sin. That isn't what I am saying. The sin is having a love relationship with Jesus and cheating on Him with something as stupid as HOT COCO! He commands us to put nothing before Him. He really will supply all of our needs according to His riches in Christ Jesus and for years I have said,  "no thanks I got this, I'll just eat more, or I'll just drink more." Such a bummer! GRACE. This is the fun bit of the story. A few hours later my boys asked if I'd play a game and could we drink coco while we do it. My first thought was NO! Absolutely not I can never drink coco again. But since that isn't the point of Jesus telling me no the first time, I pause looked at my kids and said, "Yes! That would be really fun." The coco isn't the bad guy. The worship ill placed, will however destroy and or make a soul ineffective for the work it was created to do.
I made us coco and didn't even finish my mug. My heart was allied with His. I had the freedom to drink anything I wanted, and was not mastered by it.

Oh a date with my wonderful man! 

IT WAS STOLEN

      I was molested when I was 11. I could tell you in detail how this planted a lie in my heart so deep it has affected my bottom line belief about God and the ever crucial truth of His love towards all mankind including me.
     Years ago I had the opportunity to pray with an amazing woman out in Head Waters and God gave me a vision of this man and I side by side worshiping Him in heaven. Forgiveness began. Who am I not to forgive when God obviously had.
     I have "dealt" with this thing so many times in my adult life. Always knowing that most of my issues in life could be traced back to this one event  and the implanted lie that God so loves the world but just didn't have love for me that day or He would have preserved my innocence. He would have protected my childhood and not allowed it to be stolen from me.
     Its is true that we live in a fallen world and there for we all get affected by sin. Our own sin or others sin. This fact is not comforting to the wounded that have a clear understanding of God's sovereignty. It feels personal. It "feels" like the God of scripture that is so for His own just isn't for me. If we are deceived about this foundational truth the enemy can work all kinds of mischief.
     Scripture states that, "The thief comes ONLY to STEAL, KILL and DESTROY. " Ok, the word destroy is what I thought all three words meant before I study the original language. It means to destroy fully, to perish to lose, or mar. Now stick with me I will summarize all these details in a moment but there is such truth in the details. To lose, is so that there is little or no prospect of recovery. Ugg. To mar means to damage or spoil to a certain extent; rendering the thing less perfect, less attractive or less useful, to impair or spoil. I have literally walked out years of life believing this was my identity. This is the dark, bad and nasty news of being messed with in this life by the thief through sin.

That word steal means to steal something in a gradual manner. Like a chipping away at something of great value. Quite sneaky. I can think of many things in my life that the thief has chipped away at without me realizing until there was a giant whole that caused a major problem! Not respecting and honoring my husband in years past for example. Selfishness. Idolatry over food and so on.  To kill means to rush. Isn't that surprising? It has to to will rushed breathing and I suppose unto death but the word rush says one thing me, ANXIETY! Oh how anxiety, the sin of not trusting our trustworthy God brings immediate death to peace and the fullness of life Christ came to bring us! RIGHT!?
     I have been painting with Bob Ross and he talks a lot about lighting. He says you have to have the dark to see the light and the light to see  the dark. So true Bob!

     This thievery happened in my life when I was 11. The devil set out to destroy me. In years to come he set out to steal and kill. I responded to the lie of lacking God's love in rebellion. I decided that I wasn't worth His love so I would make myself worth it. I call it rebellion because this decision was in direct conflict with how God calls us to come to Him. My salvation was secure when I was 5 so I am talking about my walk with him. I came to Him in the pride of "I got this." I had even vocalized my goal in my early 20's that I wanted to try and be the whole package. I was speaking of course about working towards being attractive, perfect and useful for my future husband but how interchangeable the concept is when you are single.
     My pursuit to fix the damage left me with quite a list of good deeds and practically no understanding of grace. Until God wonderfully frustrated my entire life.
      Our life fell apart. Three years ago my husband, three children and our dog found ourselves homeless in the dead of winter with whooping cough and no place to call home. It was in these pressing circumstances that I experienced God's keeping power. I could do nothing. I couldn't be good enough, I couldn't control anything. I could get God's attention with my self-deceived version of value or perfection. I found out in that moment that I already had it. His attention. All along God kept me when I couldn't do a thing for Him.
     I was so thankful and still am for that 9 days that felt like 3 months without a home. I was set on a course of learning who God really is.
      I hadn't given a thought to this being molested thing in years. Yet knowing it was the source of my lack of faith. I had "handled" it so many times I figure that was it, I was done with it.  I would just decide to be done with it and will myself out of disbelief. It doesn't really work that way with God or even on a physical level. If you aren't healed of a wound, YOU AREN'T HEALED. I didn't even know I needed healing until this January. Yep like last month just weeks ago!
     I think I will end this post for now.
     Think on these truths. Are you wounded? Do you need healing because the thing has never been healed? Has the thief stolen, destroyed or caused rush in your life? Next time I write I will share about the wonderful BUT GOD and His redemption and healing in my life. I am praying that these words will quicken hearts to go directly to God alone for the healing we all so desperately need!

Hand to the Plow

  Our Pastor taught on idolatry a few Sunday's ago. He challenged us to "surrender the thing that is ruining you."

Immediately I had something on my heart to surrender and a few days later, yet another! That's how it works with me. So on our way home from Indiana (after dropping our kids off for 3 days and 2 nights!!!) I said to my man, "So I have been thinking about what Brian said today and my idol is wanting to control your relationships with your kids. I can see how it is not helpful but damaging and I want to surrounding it!" "So what's your idol." Long pause. Then Paul said, " Sorry babe I don't work like that. I listen to the teaching and it takes about of week for me to process the truth and walk it out. So I may have an answer for you in a week. I'm just not the camp counselor that gathers a group of people shares their struggle and asks everyone else to take a turn and share their heart." Blahahhahahahahahahah! I just died laughing because there was so much truth in that statement and it cracks me up how different he and I are. As soon as God speaks to me about something I talk to everyone I know about it and ask if they can relate! My introvert of a man gave me a great word picture of how he functions in life in his walk with God.

     He said, "Picture an old school plow. Its strapped up to a horse or ox and the man is plowing his filed. He has to get it done in time to plant and for there to be a good harvest. Picture the man plowing along and right in his way is a rock. He picks the rock up, gets it out of his field and keeps on plowing. He doesn't talk about it. He doesn't call up his farmer friends to come take a look at the rock and stand around having a conversation about where it came from or what its made of or just pondering the reason rocks have to exist at all. He just handles it and moves on with the desire to do his work well and there be a good harvest."

     What!? I so would not handle it that way! Metaphorically of course, the rock is sin. I tend to have a process about the sin, confessing it to the Lord, grieving it and then hardest for me is moving on in grace. For my man the process is different and a bit more simple. I have to confess just hearing about his process convicted me about my desire to set up a tea party round my rocks. I do dwell on them to long instead of just acknowledging it to God and trusting Him to make my path straight. I'm sure that I have been helpful to him at some point in nudging him towards processing stuff a little more. Iron sharpens Iron and Paul and I are each others greatest iron in life.
     I wanted to share because I was so encouraged by the word picture. First because I think its a great sneak peek into how men think (at least my man) and Second I was challenged not to linger so long on the problem but to acknowledge it, toss it out of the field, and get on with God's kingdom work.

     Do you have a rock in your field? (there goes the camp counselor in me! lol) Do you linger to long on it? Do you need to talk less about it and confess the thing to the Lord and get back to plowing? Or are you on the other end? You don't communicate at all and the body of Christ would be extremely uplifted if you would share more?
    I pray we would all plow well today!

Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you

For the Married Gals

What happens in your heart when you read this?

Wives, submit to your won husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, His body, and is Himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Eph.5:22  

     I personally have had a love hate relationship with these inspired words of God. Lets remember that the Creator of our bodies, souls, spirits and personalities wrote this. This is God's heart, desire and COMMAND for us married gals. So what do we do with it? 
          I can tell you what I have done with it. I had despised it. I have obeyed it. I have pretended it wasn't there. I have stayed up late after a terrible fight studying it in the Greek word by word and the conveniently forgotten to walk it out. I have walked it out in many situations and seasons. I have failed to walk it out as well. Bottom line God has been growing me as a wife these last 11 years and 3 months. Recently (like this morning) God has shown me something new and wonderful about the submit thing. 
           My man and I just went through something hard. It didn't have anything to do with submission or so I thought but God used it to unearth some serious disobey in my life. I have not truly followed my husband yet. Its embarrassing to state this 11 years in but I am comforted that I have the rest of my life to change. So this is what I used to do (like last week). If my man asked me to do something or change something or try to lead me in any way I would evaluate if I agreed or not. If I did agree I would do whatever the things was joyfully and slap the submission label on it. If he asked something I didn't agree with I would reason away why I didn't need to do it. He doesn't understand, I wasn't brought up that way, he isn't perfect so it might not be safe to follow that and the list goes on! I am talking about the entire gamut of life issues from parenting to "Babe, please turn on the exhaust fan when you cook." 
     During our recent hard time God challenged me about this controlling attitude towards when I felt like obey Him or not. Obeying Him, God by submitting to him my husband.  He (God) said to me, what do you think would happen if you just did the things Paul asked you to do? I made a list of all the big and littles I had been rebellious with my husband about. Turns out every single one was for my benefit. Like if I followed him in the things he asked of me or in directions he wanted to take our family I would receive good things. One example, I have struggled with my health as in not eating well and working out consistently. My sweet man would gently encourage me, "Babe, I know its hard but you just gotta stay consistent with eating well and working out." In my heart I would get annoyed, like "ahhhh don't tell me what to do you have no idea how hard it is to home school, run the house, work out and eat well." Really the only thing that fuels that kind of response to our men is pride. 
     So now that we have some of the problem pin pointed, PRIDE, lets talk about the other thing that stops us from submitting to our husbands. Not TRUSTING God. 
     I have let God know more that a few times that I think its incredibly ridiculous that He expects me to follow and submit to an imperfect man. I'm OK with following and submitting to Him because He is perfect and wont mess up in leading but how in His goodness does he expect me to lay down my "right" to manage myself and give it to a fallen person? His answer to this very destructive attitude of mine was not what I expected. I wasn't even asking it recently but though the challenges Paul and I faced this week God showed me through my man. GRACE.
     I messed up. I hurt my husband. I allowed the sin of coveting what other have and I don't to tell my husband he wasn't good enough. Yuck. God used this to show me that I really am a wretch. I really am a mess and a sinner. See growing up "good little church girl," this being an utter failure apart from God concept has been difficult for me to grasp. I hurt my man. You know what he did? He loved me. I was so undeserving and he was so kind. It blew my mind. It taught me about God's love for me and taught me through experience just how wonderful grace is. I needed grace and it was freely give. Back to why it is safe to follow our fallen husbands. Because the same grace that saved us from and eternity apart from God and saves us daily as we screw up is the same grace that God pours out on our men. God is big enough to handle our men. He loves them more that we do. It might feel like a tall order to submit but could you imagine the pressure of leading. Our husbands don't need us to drive them but fallow and support them. While in the midst of our struggle this week we did have separation as far as connectedness. In that time I took God seriously with His challenge to just follow with deciding if I agree. (obviously I'm not talking about following blindly in to sin stuff)  Even when Paul was on shift and not even home I felt more connected to him than ever in my life. I don't know about you ladies but feeling united with my man is like a top favorite experience in my whole life. The benefit of submission is connection. God created marriage to be this great mystery of oneness with our spouse. There is not greater experience on earth that I have had than that. 
     I hope this is encouraging to someone. I am so excited to follow my man through the good choices and bad. To actually trust God enough to do this marriage thing His way. I know that God has blessing in store as I obey that I can't even fathom! I also know that it will take work. It will take staying focused on God, it will take allowing Him to clean out the junk in my heart and refill it with Himself. It will take a continued growth and learning about grace and humility that I have never know before. I am so thankful for Jesus, I am so thankful for marriage and I am so thankful for my Paul. 

People Pleasing

     The teenage girls in my church asked me if I would teach them the Word. We have been meeting weekly since the mid-summer. I am so blessed that God would add this to my life. I love doing life with these girls.  I had let it go that I would ever get to teach girls again. These particular girls are truly seeking Jesus. It is so refreshing to hear their hearts and struggles and go to God's word together for the answers. I have been giving the girls opportunity to teach as well. This last week the youngest of the group taught us out of 1 Peter 5. She said something that caught my attention. "We need to be prepared to fail." She said Peter failed big time and so does she. Her humility was beautiful and somewhat uncomfortable for me.
      I have been a pretty faithful student of the Word for some time now but there is still this thing that happens. I can know something intellectually all day long but unless I humble myself under that truth it doesn't get to affect my life the way God intends it to and I miss out. In other words I have the grace of God but it is to no affect if I don't let it come in a rearrange my thinking and therefore living. I want to be able to say with Paul: But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace to me was not without effect. No, I work harder than all of them- yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 1Cor.15:10 
     So back to the comment made by this sweet teenager. "We need to prepare to fail." I have wrestled over this because I know that this should resound in my soul and "Amen" should come out of my mouth but my gut reaction to this and even after much prayer is, "HUH?" In the study time with the gals we talked about humility. How so often humility comes after a time of suffering. I have found this to be true in my own life. I also have found that humility is the most unnatural state of heart there is for me in my flesh. Now this lack of humility has been manifesting its fruit of corruption in some areas of my life. The one I'd like to share about is parenting.

    I am constantly disillusioned in my life that I am not a perfect Mom. When I don't know what to do with my kids or I do know how to handle a situation and instead choose to be lazy or out of control emotionally I recognize it and.........this is were I go wrong. I have this standard of perfection set up for myself and when I don't meet it (every single day) I am disappointed. I beat myself up with guilt and then downward spiral into self-pity. This has an appearance of repentance but it is not. Repentance is seeing our wrong and look next to Jesus. What I do is see my wrong and keep my gaze on myself which results in guilt.
      I have this lie that I have believed most of my life. "If I want to be accepted (which I desperately do) I need to get it right, all of it." I have been telling myself this lie as if it where the gospel. "To get grace you have to earn it." WHAT! When I step back and compare this to all of my knowledge of God's Word its down right stupid. But the thing about lies is that they aren't always smart yet somehow they get a hook in our thinking that cannot be undone with out filtering that think through truth found ONLY in our bibles.
     So this scrambled inside out gospel is really not good news at all. There is no room for humility and preparing to fail. There is only try harder, strive, and prove your worth loving and being accepted. This gets messy and exhausting when you have 3 immature humans in your charge and their approval of you and your choices shifts like the wind because they are 7, 5 and 4. The reality that we cannot live our lives in fear of others opinions comes home real quick. Well I wish it had been real quick. I has actually taken me almost 8 years to see this one.
     To wrap up this post, If I am believing any other gospel the true gospel found in the Word (by grace I have been saved not of my works) I am going to live a scrambled inside out life. One that strives for something that has already been freely given, acceptance and grace.  I am going to sway to the whims of opinions all around me even those of the tiny people I have been called to lead not follow. The real tragedy of people pleasing is that we choose shifting acceptance man instead of unchanging love and intimacy with the Father. I want to sew to the Spirit and reap everlasting life both sides of heaven. I do not want to sew to my own gospel, my version of right, my flesh and reap the all to familiar corruption.

Gal. 6
7 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. 8 For he who sows to his flesh will of the flesh reap corruption, but he who sows to the Spirit will of the Spirit reap everlasting life. 9 And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart. 10 Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all, especially to those who are of the household of faith.

Gal. 1

10 For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

"Good Little Church Girl"

      So here is my testimony in a nut shell. I went to church with my family growing up. I accepted Jesus in Sunday school and I have had some ups and downs I have basically continued to walk with God since I was a child. I never made any crazy rebellious choices if you compare them to others. I made good choices in high school, I never dated anyone so there wasn't any impurity with boys. I would leave friends houses if they were watching distasteful movies. I mean I was a "good girl." Even into my younger adult years. I can't tell you how many times I heard, "Oh, Jess your the one we don't worry about."
    I had always liked being the good girl until I went to Horizon's School of Evangelism right out of High School. They were teaching us one day how to share our testimony in 5 min. If you know me I was like, WHAT!? That didn't seem like much time to me. As I began to prepare to share I realized I don't actually have much to say. Sure, I was molested and God helped me through that but I hadn't lived this wild rebellious life with a super dramatic conversion. For the first time I began to think my testimony wasn't useful for evangelism. It didn't seem as powerful as other people in my class.

      This bothered me but I didn't ever have it settled in my heart. Just accepted it. Then recently I got to go on a trip to Headwaters to visit one of the girls from our church.

She is serving at the CAMP there this summer and I took the girls in her family out to see her. We had such a great time. Before we left I ask God to use me to be an encouragement to them and maybe even challenge them in their walks with Him.

Headwaters area

I think He may have said yes to that but what I didn't expect is how He wanted to use them to encourage me and challenge me in my walk! One of the girls shared on the way up that she struggles with having a boring testimony. She accepted Jesus and has always followed Him. She felt like it wasn't special or useful because it didn't have much to it and that's what God really uses to get peoples attention. I tried to encourage her but I didn't have a very good answer. Truth is I have and still kind thought the same thing about my testimony. I knew this couldn't be true, there can't be testimonies more powerful that other's because that is so us focus and not Savior focused. The whole issue didn't sit well so I asked God for wisdom on it. Here is what I got:
     The reason I didn't think I had a dramatic testimony is that I still didn't get it fully what I have been saved out of. See some of my jealously of people who have really "screwed up" is they get it. They don't seem to struggle with the grace issue like I do. I would read verses like this, Luke 7:47 
Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” and feel like it's not far just because I make better choices and have less to be forgiven of (DANGER!) I don't get to love as much. The problem is that I saw myself as better than a prostitute. Here is the reality. I'm not. Arrogance has kept me from thinking I don't have a powerful testimony. I was looking at the whole thing from a  me perspective instead of a Jesus perspective. No matter how many better choices I made in my life the reality is the same. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). I am NOT a good girl. 
     We in the world put levels and degrees on sin. God doesn't. Do consequences for sin vary well yes and I think that is maybe why we think the gravity of our sin varies with God. Nope. To murder is to transgress or break God's law. To lie is to break God's law and if we break His law/standard in any area we need to be rescued because the sin must be paid for in blood. I have been rescued from Hell. I was headed strait to and eternity of fire and separation from my Creator just like the "bad person." There is no extra measure of grace for those who make good choices. That would be the gospel inside out. There is one choice to be made. Have I acknowledge and believed in my heart and confessed with muy mouth "that Jesus paid the price for my sin? If so, then grace and salvation. 
     Just wanted to share in case anyone else out there had struggled with the same thing. Blessings on your day! 

Gal. 3

10 For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, “Cursedis everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.”[e] 11 But that no one is justified by the law in the sight of God is evident, for “the just shall live by faith.”[f] 12 Yet the law is not of faith, but “the man who does them shall live by them.”[g]

13 Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”[h]), 14 that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.