When I was in Dallas for the Christian Book Expo, God was throwing open the doors of my understanding of His love for us and simply making clear so many things to me. It was an absolute time of vertical learning. So many moments that week hang in my memory as though they are floodlights to a new level of understanding God’s love for me and His love for you! I sit in my office this morning, having spent time on the deck with my son and my husband, we’ve had breakfast together, and now I am back in my office reading and praying for a while alone. God seems to be whispering to me in every way “kindness” “Show them kindness”….so many examples of how God has shown His kindness to others as He faced them with their inadequacies….the woman at the well was not berated, she was treated with kindness….the master forgiving the servant his debts…..the leper who was healed by his faith and then touched by Jesus as a sign that he was worth touching….not untouchable…..Jesus didn’t spend time berating his disciples their past….He never mentioned it….He didn’t ask only those who had “arrived” at pureness…He chose those whom other’s would most likely have said “unworthy”…..tax collectors….murderers….imperfect kings….fishermen…..yet, each had a Divine role in the Kingdom of Christ….not because of what they had been, but because they answered God’s call. So many times I think of a zillion reasons why I can’t do something instead of simply doing it.
I have this passion within me to help rebuild God’s family in our home….in our church……in our community…and the world community…..one heart at a time. To help church leaderships’ awareness of the needs of the family. To understand how to evaluate their structure and programming with the goal of it being inclusive in time offerings, program offerings, needs….to help awareness happen of the family of today’s family needs. God has sent an amazing amount of help. It has been like praying for snow and getting an avalanche and the last six weeks have simply been daily spent trying to dig a path out of the overwhelming amount of things we’re facing!
Yet my humanness…..my insecurities….my mistakes…my oh so too frequent mistakes……regularly take me off the path of His design while I focus on me again. You know the focus….”My gosh how will I ever get this done” (God has sent the help when I am overwhelmed if I will allow Him to ) “Why Me?” (Why not me? God has so kindly given me this bold personality, why shouldn’t it be used for His service) “”But God they’ll ____……to a girl like me…..I’m SO not the person to ask to do this, are you thinking this through God?” Yet, God has asked this of me and the more truthful question is ” do I really want to love Him with my obedience or do I simply want to talk about it?” (It is the first commandment is it not? Love the Lord Your God with all your heart, with all your soul , and with all your mind…why is that so hard to accept that loving God means obeying him? )
I have to realize when I’m stopped in the jungle of confusion again, (or the laundry pile, the dirty house that calls to me, the saucy child who answers in haste, the chore pile that overwhlmes me) and I am overwhelmed by the heighth, the width, the depth of all that is involved in changing my daily choices…to get things handled in an orderly way so that I am able to focus on God first in reality…weighing each part of my day with His order, not my comfort habits of ignorning what I am to do when I am to do it…..to realize when I am not going forward through the jungle….until I reach back up for God’s hand again as I pray to Him for guidance, wisdom and help. Too often I don’t stop and ask for God’s guidance, I simply swim in my own messes and often go down two or three times sputtering trying to swim on my own before I reach up for help, guidance, and wisdom!
God gently reaches back and guides me like a child by the hand with the Master. Sometimes I wonder if He thinks “will she ever learn to simply follow me, or will I have to hold her hand forever?” Right now I want to hold that hand so tightly…..but you know that my child cannot hold to me tightly forever, at some point our children must learn to walk in obedience to the values and beliefs without being kept safe by being held each moment….God has given me a two hands on job….and I have to learn to start doing some of the tasks he sends me independently holding Him dear in my heart….but using both my hands to do His tasks for me. It feels so daunting….this loving out loud….after all, I am an easy target for people’s talk….twice divorced, remarried, jeep driving….mother of a teenager who, well, simply put, acts like a teenager, not a saint…..wife in a home that is often unkempt, a high energy swirl of oh my gosh energy at times…..and other times a pontificating over excited about God girl…..let’s just say it….not exactly the prototype of who most folks would want to follow….but the thing is, I don’t want them to be me, or to follow me, I want to share God’s love through me….and for folks to learn His love for them as well!
This day, I am so aware, that each part of my day must be focused on praising, serving, and obeying our Savior, listening for His whisperings, and allowing my mistakes not to take up more of my mind than it takes to ask forgivenss and go forward again……people are hurting…..hearts are without God….without money….without kindness…without jobs…..without each other’s support….my prayer today is that I stop allowing the devil to overwhelm me with the tasks and simply keep working one task at a time as God give it to me and simply love the person who is in front of me….and show the kindess, acceptance, and unconditional love that the Savior is showing one such as me…..
God is good….Please pray for me to hear and obey God’s whisperings as they come…and to follow His commandment to “Love your neighbor as yourself” God tells us with those two commandments everything else….will be handled.
