I *heart* Karen Kingsbury!

I don't think I've written much about Karen Kingsbury in this blog. I believe it is because I don't find myself having much time for reading anymore. But I LOVE Karen Kingsbury. In fact, if I had more time, I think I'd stalk her. She is the BEST author I have ever in my life encountered. Many times, John has found me huddled in the bathroom (because I didn't want my sobs to wake him) at 2 a.m. finishing one of her books. However, last night her writing did something new for me. The sobs which emanated from me as I read weren't just sobs of empathy. They were sobs which brought waves of healing that I needed SO badly. This time her writing did not just make me feel something, her novel brought me healing. The topic at the root of the book was not something I could relate too, but every issue that spring out of that main topic hit me hard.

***I was convicted about my propensity to sit up on my high horse when I've been wronged and think how LUCKY the person who wronged me is that I extended my royal scepter and deemed to forgive their lowly butt.

***I was humbled by the reminder that no matter how sorry we are about a sin we can't go back and change it and its consequences will be endured no matter how contrite we are.

There were so many life applications I found in this novel that I literally had to sit still a few minutes after turning the last page. I was a bit stunned, and my head was spinning. God was whispering SO many things to my heart that I didn't know which one to allow my brain to settle on first. I am still in the process of working through all of this, but here is the part I wanted to share with all of you.

A few days ago I blogged about my struggle with the concept of forgiving and forgetting. Remember I talked about the salt (like our sin) being completely dissolved in water?? Well in processing the thoughts and feelings I had after this book, I came to an understanding about a new facet of forgiveness that I would like to share. Here is is.

As previously stated, I don't believe forgiveness is forgetting. I also don't believe forgiveness and healing are synonymous. I don't believe I have to be completely over a sin to forgive it. I don't believe that I have to never ever bring it up or mourn the consequences of it in order to have forgiven it. I think that forgiveness means choosing to continue loving in spite of the sin. I think that when someone hurts us we can IMMEDIATELY let go of that sin and FORGIVE. I believe that forgiveness can take place instantly. But depending upon the magnitude of the sin, it make take us a while to heal from the wound of it. It may take us a while to rebuild. But needing time to heal or slowly rebuilding these things do not indicate an absence of forgiveness and in order to heal and rebuild we must REMEMBER.

Here's my analogy:

Imagine being sinned against is like an earthquake in your life. Forgiveness is your choice to go on living. You may have lost loved ones in the earthquake. Your house may be rubble and your livelihood may be in ruins. But you make a choice to forge ahead. As you forge ahead, you may need time for the injuries you sustained to heal. Rebuilding your home and reestablishing your livelihood will not happen overnight. The pain of the loved ones you lost will sting for a very long time. However, none of these things mean that you are not going to continue on living.

When someone sins against us, we can make the choice IMMEDIATELY to forgive. We may have lost innocence or trust because of their sin. Our hearts may be rubble and our spirits may be in ruins, but we make a choice to forgive. Forgiveness isn't a magic wand that makes everything "okay." We still need time for our injuries to heal. We still need time to rebuild trust and to whittle away bitterness and anger. The pain of what was done to us will sting for a very long time. However, none of these things mean that we have not forgiven.

More then a decade ago, I was sinned against in a grievous way. What made matters worse was the sinful thing was done to me by a fellow believer in Christ. I was not just hurt by that single incident. My world was rocked by the thought, "How can part of the body of Christ DO THIS?" I was not as good at forgiving back then, and it took me awhile to get to the point that I even wanted to forgive. Yet to this day, nearly twelve years later, when I look back on that situation, I cringe a little at the memory of the devastation it wrought. I do not believe that means I did not forgive. I believe that means that I suffered a PAINFUL betrayal and the more painful the betrayal the longer it will take to heal from it.

I guess that is all I wanted to say for today.... I already feel a blog for tomorrow building in my heart... Wish I had a good teaser for it, but I don't want to give anything away...

See you tomorrow.

On sin and salt water....

I was searching this morning for an analogy. See one of my pet peeves is the saying, "Forgive and forget." Because I find it literally IMPOSSIBLE to forget the big hurts in my life. I think I am a pretty forgiving person. In fact, on occasion, I have been accused of being too forgiving. However, STILL I have never been able to transition from forgiveness into that state where I literally do NOT remember the offense. I just don't think it's possible. Hence why that statement peeves me.

This morning I was trying to come up with one of my famous analogies to explain the fact that even though a sin is forgiven the consequences of it still remain. It's still a part of you. I was sorting through comparisons like oil and water which I didn't really like because to some extent the sin we dabble with is more completely dissolved in us, more like salt dissolves in water.......

When I hit puberty, I started losing my knobby kneed, emaciated look in a BIG way. My gymnastics coach took notice of this and began lecturing me on how fat I was becoming. My response was to request bathroom breaks from gymnastics practice to go to the bathroom and make myself throw up. My disorder grew throughout high school and college, crescendoing when I was in Denver for my first teaching job. It was there that through counseling and eventually a miraculous healing that I conquered my eating disorder. However, even still I carry with me a little bit of that 13-year old girl in a leotard bending over the toilet. Now in a season of life where I have lost control of my fitness and weight I still am haunted by her. Even still if I overeat, I am tempted to shove a toothbrush down my throat. Even in healing I am somehow a bit different than someone who never forced herself to throw up to try to be thinner.

I was searching for the analogy to illustrate this enigmatic quality of sin, when I came up with the salt in water concept. I started working it. When we taste of forbidden fruit, when we dabble in sin, it's like pouring salt into a glass of water. The salt dissolves and even if we stop sinning, even if we stop pouring more salt in the water, the salt is still there. It's a part of us. When all of a sudden from out of NOWHERE God hit me with a science lesson out of the kids Abeka text book. They had to boil salt water to learn that salt from the ocean doesn't evaporate. I heard God whisper to me, "I can boil you. You will become a water vapor leaving your salty sin behind." WOW! It ministered to me in ways I cannot explain. And it reminded me of a truth from my very favorite movie EVER (Facing the Giants), "With God all things are possible!" He can remove the salt of sin from my life. Whether I poured that salt in on my own or whether someone else poured it into me, God can REMOVE it. It won't be easy. The analogy of being boiled away does not seem like a walk in the park to me; however, "desperate times call for desperate measures."

So if you have sin in your life, and it feels like you just can't get the last of the saltiness out, ask Him to boil it away. It won't be easy. It won't be comfortable. You'll never be the same... but isn't that what you wanted in the first place?

The kind of mother I have....

My mother has a second mother, Auntie Marge. Auntie Marge and her husband Uncle Joe helped my grandmother (a single mother in the 1950s) raise her twin daughters. As a result my mother has always treated Auntie Marge as her mother too, and for the first time in many decades, my mother won't have to settle for sending Auntie Marge flowers or a fruit basket. This year she gets to spend Mother's Day celebrating with Auntie Marge. But first my mother and I had to negotiate getting Auntie Marge into town for the celebration....

"But I don't want you to have to pack up and lug all the kids on a special trip into the city just to bring me Auntie Marge."

"It's okay mom. I don't mind. Besides.... I would like a chance to see my mom for Mother's Day."

"It's just so far to come for no reason. Don't you have any errands in the city."

"No mom but I wanted to come into town to see you too."

"Hmmmm.... maybe Dad could meet John halfway before he goes to work at McDonald's."

"I want to come into town or meet you halfway, so I can see you for Mother's Day."

"Okay, but I still feel bad that you have to lug the kids out."

I have to admit the conversation left me feeling a little frustrated because I still didn’t feel she had heard me. However, the next morning’s call rectified that….

“I feel so silly. I FINALLY get what you were saying. YOU want to spend some time with YOUR mother for Mother’s Day.”

(with a smile on my face)…. “Yes Mother, I would like to spend some time with MY mother for Mother’s Day.”

“Fine then let’s meet halfway for lunch.”

See that is the kind of mother I have….. I have a mother who is so wrapped up in honoring other people, that she doesn’t realize someone is trying to honor her. I don’t have a mother who is obsessing over what her children are going to do for her for Mother’s Day. I have a mother who is obsessing over what she is going to do for her mothers for Mother’s Day. And that is just the way I want it.

What a wonderful heritage to have handed down to me! And what a daunting task to pass it down to my children. Put others first. Don’t concentrate on what you’re getting; concentrate on what you’re giving.

I hope you are all as lucky as I am, but even if you didn’t have a sacrificing, amazing mother like I did, you can still be a person who puts others first. I’ll let you in on a little secret…. The people who are consumed with blessing others are much happier than those who are consumed with what others are doing for them.

Happy Mother’s Day Mom, and thank you for modeling a servant’s heart for me!

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

Philippians 2:3

The sound of silence...

Silence is not really something I know much about. I've always been a gregarious person with a HUGE mouth. Every parent/teacher conference my parents ever had included the words Jami, talks, and a lot. Most of the time I'm not sure I could even pick silence out of a line up. My life is SOOOOOOOOOO loud. We always joke we are "The Loud Family," but it really isn't a joke. My house has a constant din that seems to be the soundtrack of my life. Last summer when we moved in to this quiet, country neighborhood in the boonies, we kept saying, "There goes the neighborhood," because we are ANYTHING but quiet. However, this past month I have really been called to a time of silence.

I'm not entirely sure why, but God called me to silence my fingers this past month. At first it started out as just busyness. To my normal load of mother of four with a husband still recovering from brain surgery who telecommutes and homeschools, I added caring for an elderly Aunt in my house full time and traveling to the city to care for my elderly Grandmother twice a week. Plus I was planning a HUGE birthday gala event for Hannah. Finally, John and I were walking through a bit of a valley (not really a valley... more like a culvert) of fear related to a significant increase in his pain level accompanied by a return of some of his Chiari symptoms. (Visit to the Neurosurgeon earlier this week put all our fears to rest, and switching up of his medications has eased the symptoms and pain.) This all made for a busy time which did not allow for much blogging. I felt a little guilty about leaving you all hanging and not blogging; however, after a little time I realized that I had NOTHING on my heart to blog about. It wasn't that God wasn't moving all around me, but I could tell that there was nothing He was pressing upon my heart to speak about. Then earlier this week the dandelions burst open the dam in my soul, and I could feel my writing pressing upon my heart again. I'm happy to be back, but I'm also contemplating what all that silence was about.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the silence was to shore me up. I am about to enter several months of "one year ago todays." Anniversaries of the most difficult things I have ever in my life dealt with will be hitting me over and over again this summer, and I suspect that (knowing me more intimately than any one else does) my Creator knew I needed a little silence to rest. Only time will tell if that is the truth or not, but I have a sneaking suspicion I will look back on April 2010 as a fortifying time.

However, I digress.... the point is what lesson should the sound of silence bring? To someone like me who can hardly find silence in the din of children, work, and other related chaos, it sometimes becomes a dirty word. Silence! Ha! It tastes a bit bitter like the word Atlantis to the treasure hunter. I know it exists, but my inability to find it makes that word feel icky on my tongue, in my mind. But silence can be the Holy Grail to your soul. In this case, I feel the blog silence was to strengthen me. See as much as I love to write, and as much as I love all of you, sometimes my blogs bring me nothing but trouble. It often feels like no matter how much I share someone always want to know more. Furthermore, sometimes my intent... the moral of my story... is so completely misunderstood, I am left feeling like a failure for not getting my point across more appropriately. Yet while I suspect the main purpose of all this silence was the shoring up thing, there was a hidden agenda too. I discovered that while I hear lessons from God all around me, sometimes the chaotic din is blocking out lessons too. The little lessons, the quiet things are easier to find in the silence.

Well consider yourselves forewarned.... the silence is over! I feel blogs backing up in my heart like cars in a traffic jam on a Friday afternoon. Yet I'm hoping to hold on to the fortitude God brought through this season of silence and striving to remember to seek out the silence with my whole heart so that I can hear the itty bitty lessons He has for me too.

Hope you have a GREAT day and that you can find a little silence today too.

Weeds....

I have become such a John Deere girl! (Okay my riding lawn mower is a Yard King or something like that, but you get my drift right?) See it's become my job to mow the mammoth of a yard we now have. John works so much. Every night (except Monday) he arrives home between 8 and 9. Saturdays he works a full eight hour day. His only real day off is Sunday, and that is church day and a well-deserved Sabbath too. So it has become the Momma's job to mow the 1.89 acre lawn, and guess what? I actually LOVE it! Idk why... I think cuz it's mindless and no one can interrupt me, and because the lawn stays neatly mowed just a little bit longer than the kitchen floor stays spotless after a mopping.

Anywhoo... I was mowing on Tuesday, and I came up over a hill in the backyard and caught sight of a beautiful patch of overgrown grass polka-dotted with bright yellow dandelions. At first the beauty of the sight took my breath away, but very shortly thereafter, God hit me with a POW! of a lesson. Even as my eyes took in the beauty of the green with splashes of yellow and my heart swelled at the appreciation of the beauty of God's creation, my brain started to kick in and say, "Ummm Jami... Those are weeds." I thought about how just a few weeks ago there wasn't a dandelion in sight. Then one day, Elijah brought me a fistful of "flowers." I thought, "Hmmm dandelion time." Before I knew it... there were patches everywhere. Dandelions were covering my lawn.

God got me thinking about sin. One minute everything is hunky dory. Then sin pokes its head up and if you don't do something about it, before you know it, your whole "lawn" is covered with dandelions.

I've had several applications of this thought called to mind the past few days, but here is the one that is screaming out the most and hitting me HARD in the heart. It has to do with relationships.

I am very good at filtering the thoughts that occur in my mind before they reach my lips; however, because of this I tend to keep my mouth shut a little too much. I let little irritations with people fester until they become huge grievances crippling my entire relationship with them. I see this happening all around me in other people's lives too. People who should have spoken up when something was small and manageable allow it to grow and thrive until it takes over their entire relationship with their spouse, their family, a friend, their church. Before you know it the dandelions have taken over their yard and they have some MAJOR work to do in order to get control.

Kinda like this:

Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.

James 1:15

So what's the plan of action then? I used to think my response was simply to root out that weed of sin every time it popped up in my heart and my relationships. However, this week looking around I realized that even if I had rooted up that very first dandelion, it likely would have been too late. That one weed would have likely already had little friends about to pop up all over. So here's what I advise when dealing with weeds (in your yard and your heart):

1. Root them out! Definitely yank that bad boy outta your yard or heart as soon as possible. The sooner the better! When your hubby's voice has a bit of an edge to it, when your BFF forgets your b-day, when your church fails to pray about your illness... address the hurt and pain but then LET GO and get rid of it!

2. Sprinkle some weed killer all about. It's not good enough to just root out that weed. You also have to take action against any friends that weed may have lurking about. I suggest when you root out a sin you IMMEDIATELY bathe your spirit in the word of God. If you are struggling with the sin of lust say. Turn your eyes from that person/thing you are lusting after the SECOND you realize you are lusting. Then immediately find all the scripture you can about lust and soak your spirit in those truths.

3. Protect your yard from your neighbors dandelions. Here's where my analogy goes a little off track, because you can't really do much in a yard situation. You can't pick up your yard and move it away from your neighbor's yard, BUT in life, you can physically remove yourself from the people around you who have weeds in their "yard". Surround yourself instead with people who's lawns are weed free and flourishing.

Well I hope my little rabbit trail on weeds got you thinking. Are there any weeds in your yard today? If so, I hope and pray you will root them out! spray some weed killer! and move your yard away from other weedy yards!

Have a GREAT day!