So many things on my mind today - it's hard to decide where to begin.
I woke up this morning not realizing that I had been waiting for today. I am not good with dates and I hardly ever know what day of the week it is, much less day of the month. But eventually, I realized that it is February 22nd - the first anniversary of both my baptism and the day I found out I was pregnant with my little angel.
It's so strange to think about how much can happen in just one year. One year ago today I was publicly proclaiming my love for Jesus in front of strangers for the first time. It was important to me - but I was barely paying attention because my mind was reeling so much from the positive pregnancy test I'd just had. A year ago today I was living in a rental house on the other side of town, and absolutely convinced it would be five years before we owned a home of our own. I was dreaming about the little sleep-sounds I'm listening to right now on the baby monitor. I was praising God that He had been so faithful to answer my prayers. I distinctly remember a morning in early February last year when I was down on my knees praying for this baby. Little did I know, God had already delivered her into my womb. One year ago today, I was ready to start a new adventure in so many areas of my life.
Life is so cyclical. Right now, I'm getting ready to start another adventure. God has been faithful to answer yet another prayer - and again He answered it long before I even prayed it.
I quit my job last week. Yes, I finally trusted God enough to take the step of obedience I'd been feeling called to for so long. And today, within a week of finally placing my faith in Him, we were given a financial blessing completely out of the blue. Adam's dad had some savings bonds for him that we didn't know about, and they will more than cover the amount of my salary for the next few months as we adjust to being a one-income household.
It is so amazing to me to think that ten years ago, God knew exactly where we'd be today and exactly what we'd need, and He made provision for that. It so makes me wish I had been obedient earlier - who knows what blessings we missed out on because of my reluctance.
All my fears have melted away. The worst - breaking the news to my bosses - is over, and I can finally start looking toward the future. Hallelujah and Amen.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Am I a Quitter?
So if you suffered through reading my last blog here, I guess I should throw you a bone and tell you what that was all about.
Adam and I are praying about whether or not I should quit my part-time job and fully devote myself to wife- and motherhood. This is something I've always wanted, and something I always planned on. It is something I feel very strongly that God has called me to. It is something that I want desperately.
Unfortunately, in the world today, it is difficult to get by on one income. We have looked at our budget and found that we can do it if we cut out pretty much all luxuries, and even then we won't have much room to wiggle if something happens - unexpected medical bills, car or home repairs, etc.
I'm having trouble, now, discerning whether or not this is truly God's will. I don't know why, really - over and over again for the past two-and-a-half years I have felt like I was in a job He didn't want me in and that things were going to keep happening to make that job tough for me to do until I eventually quit. At this point, I can barely accomplish anything at all. Every technological thing I need to do my job keeps breaking, and then the workarounds I find break too. It is almost ridiculous, like He has sent the universe to attack my work life to make a point.
But still I wonder...
I think the biggest reason I have trouble believing that this is something God wants for me is because it is something I want so much myself. I could easily convince myself that this is God's will simply because I want it to be His will, and filter out all the warning signs that say He doesn't want me to do this. And then where would I be? I basically have the best situation possible for a working mom right now, in that I am working part-time and mostly from home. I don't need to get childcare and my hours are flexible. If I were to quit and then it didn't work out, I am fairly certain I would not be able to work out a deal like this for myself ever again. Then I would be even farther away from my desire to be home with Anna.
Obviously, it is a trust issue.
On my other blog, I am doing an in-depth, verse-by-verse study of Proverbs 31. I don't know why I decided to do it, I just did. I really felt like God was sending me to that chapter (and specifically, the verse I was going to post on today) this morning for my answer. But now I am even more confused than ever. All I was able to glean from this morning's verse (Prov 31:10) was that I need to be brave. But be brave in what? Be brave enough to quit my job or brave enough not to?
The rest of Proverbs 31 is even more confusing; just this morning I have read three different takes on what it says about women working outside the home. The first one said that women may work outside the home as long as it doesn't detract from the attention they give to their families. The second one said women should definitely work outside the home, because the Proverbs 31 woman obviously does. The third one said that women definitely should not work outside the home, because all of the Proverbs 31 woman's work was through the home, not outside of it.
I don't know what to believe or what to do. I so badly want to take a leap of faith, because I think I will be much happier. But I don't want to be disobedient if this is not what He wants for me, and hurt my family by not bringing in finances we might need down the road. I feel like I need a miracle.
Adam and I are praying about whether or not I should quit my part-time job and fully devote myself to wife- and motherhood. This is something I've always wanted, and something I always planned on. It is something I feel very strongly that God has called me to. It is something that I want desperately.
Unfortunately, in the world today, it is difficult to get by on one income. We have looked at our budget and found that we can do it if we cut out pretty much all luxuries, and even then we won't have much room to wiggle if something happens - unexpected medical bills, car or home repairs, etc.
I'm having trouble, now, discerning whether or not this is truly God's will. I don't know why, really - over and over again for the past two-and-a-half years I have felt like I was in a job He didn't want me in and that things were going to keep happening to make that job tough for me to do until I eventually quit. At this point, I can barely accomplish anything at all. Every technological thing I need to do my job keeps breaking, and then the workarounds I find break too. It is almost ridiculous, like He has sent the universe to attack my work life to make a point.
But still I wonder...
I think the biggest reason I have trouble believing that this is something God wants for me is because it is something I want so much myself. I could easily convince myself that this is God's will simply because I want it to be His will, and filter out all the warning signs that say He doesn't want me to do this. And then where would I be? I basically have the best situation possible for a working mom right now, in that I am working part-time and mostly from home. I don't need to get childcare and my hours are flexible. If I were to quit and then it didn't work out, I am fairly certain I would not be able to work out a deal like this for myself ever again. Then I would be even farther away from my desire to be home with Anna.
Obviously, it is a trust issue.
On my other blog, I am doing an in-depth, verse-by-verse study of Proverbs 31. I don't know why I decided to do it, I just did. I really felt like God was sending me to that chapter (and specifically, the verse I was going to post on today) this morning for my answer. But now I am even more confused than ever. All I was able to glean from this morning's verse (Prov 31:10) was that I need to be brave. But be brave in what? Be brave enough to quit my job or brave enough not to?
The rest of Proverbs 31 is even more confusing; just this morning I have read three different takes on what it says about women working outside the home. The first one said that women may work outside the home as long as it doesn't detract from the attention they give to their families. The second one said women should definitely work outside the home, because the Proverbs 31 woman obviously does. The third one said that women definitely should not work outside the home, because all of the Proverbs 31 woman's work was through the home, not outside of it.
I don't know what to believe or what to do. I so badly want to take a leap of faith, because I think I will be much happier. But I don't want to be disobedient if this is not what He wants for me, and hurt my family by not bringing in finances we might need down the road. I feel like I need a miracle.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Clam Chowder or Other Soup?
So last night while I was not sleeping (this happens sometimes, because I have a baby that sleeps in my bedroom and sometimes yells in her sleep for no reason), God gave me a visual aide in my head to illustrate a point to me. I thought it was kind of neat, so I'd like to share with you.
As Christians, when we are disobedient to the Lord, we are not on His path. We are, instead, walking along a parallel path. We are both headed in the same direction, but we are not together. Some of the things God sees from His path, we can also see from ours, but there are a lot of things along His path that we can't see because we're too far away. Sometimes our path will be bumpy where His is smooth. Sometimes we will hit a road block that doesn't exist on God's path.
It looks kind of like this (excuse the rudimentary computer drawing):
God's path -->| | <-- Our path
| |
| |
| |
| /<--Roadblock
| |
| |
| |
| |
Get the idea?
So because we're Christians, we are going the same way as God, but if we're disobedient, we're not going with Him. Sometimes we can turn our heads and look over at His path and wave, but we are still traveling down our own road alone.
Here's the example from my own life that God used to teach me about this last night. Some details have been changed to protect the innocent. Or mostly to protect me. :)
I have been fairly certain for quite some time now (a looooong time, possibly years) that God has been asking me to do a specific thing - let's say that specific thing is buying some Clam Chowder. (Again, some details have been changed). When God first revealed to me that He wanted me to buy Clam Chowder, I got really excited. "Yes, God!" I said. "I love Clam Chowder! I am so excited to buy some!" And then I went on about my life, overjoyed about the prospect of one day buying some Clam Chowder.
A little while later, I was at the store buying some Other Soup that was not Clam Chowder. I didn't want to buy the Other Soup, but I felt like I had to. I was grumpy about it and I also really didn't like doing it. God said to me, "Sarah, why are you buying Other Soup? I told you to buy Clam Chowder."
I said, "God, we can't afford Clam Chowder right now. I don't like this Other Soup but I have to buy it."
For a long time, I've been buying and eating the Other Soup. I hate the taste of it and look forward so much to the day when I can buy Clam Chowder, but it seems like that time is never going to come. At least, it seemed like that until a few days ago.
A few days ago, the Holy Spirit convicted me again (around 4am, lovely). It seemed so clear to me then that if God's will was for me to have Clam Chowder, there was a way for me to have Clam Chowder! God wouldn't reveal something to me that was impossible just to mess with me - He's not like that. There is a way!
So what do you think I did? That's right! I am still eating the Other Soup!
But my husband and I have devised a plan. We have decided to, at a later date and for an undetermined amount of time, begin practicing buying Clam Chowder. This way, we can see if we can really and truly afford to buy the Clam Chowder without actually buying it. We will still, of course, be eating the Other Soup. God must be so pleased!
I hope you didn't mind my soup analogy, and I hope it didn't confuse you too much. The moral of the story is that I am here, still traveling down my own path, trying to find a way to get to God's path without actually making any sort of turn. It's like there is a canyon between us and I am too afraid that I will fall in if I try to leap over it.
God convicted me last night that this lack of trust I have in him is disobedience, and it is sin. But I am still paralyzed by my fear! I want to do things my way, the safe way, and then eventually end up on His road when I have more confidence. But something I read in Beth Moore's Breaking Free this week really applies here: Beth says that God doesn't want to walk with us, he wants us to walk with Him! He is not going to come over to my path, so if I want to continue walking down this road, I am going to do it alone. And that's just as scary as jumping over a canyon, in my opinion.
As Christians, when we are disobedient to the Lord, we are not on His path. We are, instead, walking along a parallel path. We are both headed in the same direction, but we are not together. Some of the things God sees from His path, we can also see from ours, but there are a lot of things along His path that we can't see because we're too far away. Sometimes our path will be bumpy where His is smooth. Sometimes we will hit a road block that doesn't exist on God's path.
It looks kind of like this (excuse the rudimentary computer drawing):
God's path -->| | <-- Our path
| |
| |
| |
| /<--Roadblock
| |
| |
| |
| |
Get the idea?
So because we're Christians, we are going the same way as God, but if we're disobedient, we're not going with Him. Sometimes we can turn our heads and look over at His path and wave, but we are still traveling down our own road alone.
Here's the example from my own life that God used to teach me about this last night. Some details have been changed to protect the innocent. Or mostly to protect me. :)
I have been fairly certain for quite some time now (a looooong time, possibly years) that God has been asking me to do a specific thing - let's say that specific thing is buying some Clam Chowder. (Again, some details have been changed). When God first revealed to me that He wanted me to buy Clam Chowder, I got really excited. "Yes, God!" I said. "I love Clam Chowder! I am so excited to buy some!" And then I went on about my life, overjoyed about the prospect of one day buying some Clam Chowder.
A little while later, I was at the store buying some Other Soup that was not Clam Chowder. I didn't want to buy the Other Soup, but I felt like I had to. I was grumpy about it and I also really didn't like doing it. God said to me, "Sarah, why are you buying Other Soup? I told you to buy Clam Chowder."
I said, "God, we can't afford Clam Chowder right now. I don't like this Other Soup but I have to buy it."
For a long time, I've been buying and eating the Other Soup. I hate the taste of it and look forward so much to the day when I can buy Clam Chowder, but it seems like that time is never going to come. At least, it seemed like that until a few days ago.
A few days ago, the Holy Spirit convicted me again (around 4am, lovely). It seemed so clear to me then that if God's will was for me to have Clam Chowder, there was a way for me to have Clam Chowder! God wouldn't reveal something to me that was impossible just to mess with me - He's not like that. There is a way!
So what do you think I did? That's right! I am still eating the Other Soup!
But my husband and I have devised a plan. We have decided to, at a later date and for an undetermined amount of time, begin practicing buying Clam Chowder. This way, we can see if we can really and truly afford to buy the Clam Chowder without actually buying it. We will still, of course, be eating the Other Soup. God must be so pleased!
I hope you didn't mind my soup analogy, and I hope it didn't confuse you too much. The moral of the story is that I am here, still traveling down my own path, trying to find a way to get to God's path without actually making any sort of turn. It's like there is a canyon between us and I am too afraid that I will fall in if I try to leap over it.
God convicted me last night that this lack of trust I have in him is disobedience, and it is sin. But I am still paralyzed by my fear! I want to do things my way, the safe way, and then eventually end up on His road when I have more confidence. But something I read in Beth Moore's Breaking Free this week really applies here: Beth says that God doesn't want to walk with us, he wants us to walk with Him! He is not going to come over to my path, so if I want to continue walking down this road, I am going to do it alone. And that's just as scary as jumping over a canyon, in my opinion.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
My Utmost for His Highest
Adam and I are trying for the first time this year to read through the Bible in a year. Last night we started in Leviticus. This is probably the part where most people give up, because Leviticus can be pretty dull and hard to get through. Oddly enough, I really felt God speaking to me through it last night. (I don't know why I said "oddly enough" - God can use any tool He wants to do whatever He wants!)
Anyway, the first few chapters of Leviticus pertain to the proper way to perform animal sacrifice for the atonement of sins. I'm glad we don't have to do this anymore under the New Covenant, because it sounds really gross! Burning fat, washing out innards, sprinkling blood... Yuck. But that's really not the point.
The point is that in several of the verses we read last night, God made sure to point out that the sacrifices that He demanded were to be "without defect." I've heard it a million times before, but for some reason last night (perhaps because it was repeated so often) it stuck out to me.
You and I are not responsible for making animal sacrifices to atone for our sins anymore, because Jesus Christ came and paid the full price for us. He was the ultimate sacrifice and so we need make no more. But as Christians, we are responsible for serving God, for taking the time to pray, and for loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Yet so often, don't we find that we reserve the right to push God to the back burner? It's kind of like whatever we do for Him we view as "extra." Let's get our own life dealt with first, and then if we have time on top of that, we can serve.
Boy, do we have our priorities mixed up!
God demands that the absolute best be reserved for Him. Not only that, but if we look back to Exodus, we see that God demands that the first be given to Him as well (Ex 22:29, Ex 34:19). Able offered up to God the "firstlings of his flock" in Genesis 4. The Israelites were commanded each year at the festival of First Fruits to offer up to God the first sheaves of the harvest (Lev 23:9-15). Imagine the trust it took for the Israelites to see the beginnings of their harvest after a long winter of rationing out what was saved, to not know how much more was coming, and to sacrifice it away!
And what about us? Did you know that one of the verses we all know and love so well - "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" (Prov 8:17) - has a deeper meaning? If you look up that verse in the Amplified or King James versions of the Bible, there is another word stuck in there; it is the word "early."
We are commanded to seek Him early! We are to give God the first fruits of our day - the very best part, and not delay in doing it.
Does that convict your heart? It does mine. I know there are many times when I don't even remember God in my life until I have been up and grumpy for a few hours.
If you are not a morning person, don't despair. I don't believe that God is going to penalize us if we don't have our quiet times in the morning - but the point remains that we need to reserve a spot in our day for Him as our number one priority. The danger in saying "I'll do it later" is that time tends to run away with us, and before we know it, we've gone our whole day without honoring or seeking the Lord.
I'll say just one more thing on this topic before signing off. Last night while reading through those passages in Leviticus with my husband, I realized for the first time why it is so important to give God the first and best of ourselves each day. It is because God did the same for us. He sacrificed His firstborn Son, His only Son, and His perfect Son for us. He held nothing back in His love for us. Why should we hold back in ours for Him?
Anyway, the first few chapters of Leviticus pertain to the proper way to perform animal sacrifice for the atonement of sins. I'm glad we don't have to do this anymore under the New Covenant, because it sounds really gross! Burning fat, washing out innards, sprinkling blood... Yuck. But that's really not the point.
The point is that in several of the verses we read last night, God made sure to point out that the sacrifices that He demanded were to be "without defect." I've heard it a million times before, but for some reason last night (perhaps because it was repeated so often) it stuck out to me.
You and I are not responsible for making animal sacrifices to atone for our sins anymore, because Jesus Christ came and paid the full price for us. He was the ultimate sacrifice and so we need make no more. But as Christians, we are responsible for serving God, for taking the time to pray, and for loving Him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Yet so often, don't we find that we reserve the right to push God to the back burner? It's kind of like whatever we do for Him we view as "extra." Let's get our own life dealt with first, and then if we have time on top of that, we can serve.
Boy, do we have our priorities mixed up!
God demands that the absolute best be reserved for Him. Not only that, but if we look back to Exodus, we see that God demands that the first be given to Him as well (Ex 22:29, Ex 34:19). Able offered up to God the "firstlings of his flock" in Genesis 4. The Israelites were commanded each year at the festival of First Fruits to offer up to God the first sheaves of the harvest (Lev 23:9-15). Imagine the trust it took for the Israelites to see the beginnings of their harvest after a long winter of rationing out what was saved, to not know how much more was coming, and to sacrifice it away!
And what about us? Did you know that one of the verses we all know and love so well - "I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me" (Prov 8:17) - has a deeper meaning? If you look up that verse in the Amplified or King James versions of the Bible, there is another word stuck in there; it is the word "early."
We are commanded to seek Him early! We are to give God the first fruits of our day - the very best part, and not delay in doing it.
Does that convict your heart? It does mine. I know there are many times when I don't even remember God in my life until I have been up and grumpy for a few hours.
If you are not a morning person, don't despair. I don't believe that God is going to penalize us if we don't have our quiet times in the morning - but the point remains that we need to reserve a spot in our day for Him as our number one priority. The danger in saying "I'll do it later" is that time tends to run away with us, and before we know it, we've gone our whole day without honoring or seeking the Lord.
I'll say just one more thing on this topic before signing off. Last night while reading through those passages in Leviticus with my husband, I realized for the first time why it is so important to give God the first and best of ourselves each day. It is because God did the same for us. He sacrificed His firstborn Son, His only Son, and His perfect Son for us. He held nothing back in His love for us. Why should we hold back in ours for Him?
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
A Living and Active Word for Me
"Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare."
- Isaiah 55:2
I am in the middle of reading "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore right now (it sounds like Beth Moore is all I ever read, doesn't it?) and this just popped up as one of our memory verses. I am so amazed! God has consolidated two of my biggest concerns right now and given me a verse to memorize to help me along the way.
Forgive me for taking this verse a bit literally - I do understand that this verse is not technically about spending money and eating. But metaphorical as it may be, it applies to me in a very simple way. I love it when God does that! He not only wrote a love letter to humanity in His word, but "the word of God is living and active" (Heb 4:12, NASB) and meant for each of us individually as well as for the entire church body collectively.
So yes, I am willing to admit to you all that finances and weight loss have been heavy (ha ha) in my prayers recently. Praise God that He answers - and He answers specifically!
My biggest problem now is going to be remembering what He said. Thankfully He gave me a memory verse as His answer. He knows me too well, it seems.
Thank You, Lord, for listening to and answering my prayers. Thank You for Your sound advice. And thank You for increasing my faith in You yet again. Amen.
Monday, February 1, 2010
My Testimony - A Work in Progress
I don't know why, but I feel very strongly that it is time to write my testimony. Please don't think I'm doing this just for the blog - I've actually never ever written out my testimony before (even when asked to do it) so this is more of a "for me" thing. I was thinking about it the other night and was just amazed at how the Creator of the universe pursued me - why I'll never know - for so long before I allowed myself to be caught. I just feel like it is time to glorify Him by sharing the story.
To begin at the beginning, I am one of those people who, for a long time, thought I was "born Christian." Actually, I was born into a home where being a Lutheran (capital "L") was much more important than being a Christian, and since I was baptized into the Lutheran church, I didn't really have anything to worry about on that front. For my family, religion was never really about God so much as it was about tradition and family heritage. My grandmother was baptized in the same church in which my mother was baptized and confirmed, my parents were married, my sister was baptized and confirmed, and I was baptized. (The only reason I wasn't confirmed there is that we moved away, never again to join a church because none of them, according to Mom, were enough "like home.")
I can remember when I was small asking my parents how Christianity was different from other religions, or what it meant to be a Christian, and receiving the answer that if you believed that Jesus was God, you were a Christian and going to Heaven. I also remember something about having to follow the Golden Rule. Interestingly, as uninformed as this approach was, it was not legalistic. My parents didn't tell me I had to follow the ten commandments or live by the rules in the Bible in order to be saved, just that I had to believe that Jesus was God and basically "be a good person."
It was never really enough for me.
I know now how uncomfortable I made my parents with my constant desire for more religion in my life. It seems I was aware of the God-shaped hole we are all born with in our hearts earlier than most, which is what makes the ridiculous amount of time it took me to find what fit inside so tragic. Anyway, I can remember not understanding why we didn't read the Bible and trying for a few weeks when I was maybe eight years old to read one chapter aloud to my parents before dinner each night. Obviously, it didn't last.
Around twelve, I had a friend who I thought could help me. She probably could have, to tell the truth. She led me through the Sinner's Prayer and I asked Christ to be my savior. I went down to the Christian bookstore and bought myself an NIV Bible. I started reading and highlighting in Psalms, wanting so badly to understand what God was telling me, but winding up feeling overwhelmed by what I didn't know or just didn't "get." She and her parents took me to church with them for a few weeks at a non-denominational mega-church in town, but my parents disapproved of a church with no organ where people wore jeans and I buckled under the pressure and stopped attending. With no one to guide me, I abandoned the endeavor. I'm foggy on whether or not I was actually saved at that point; I meant what I said in the prayer, but I don't know if I understood it or not. Regardless, I wandered away from Jesus a lost sheep, whether He was my shepherd at that point or not.
But my search for spirituality didn't end, and some of my new friends at my new school introduced me to the idea of Wicca and/or Paganism (I don't think even they knew the difference at the time). We sat in circles at night and tried to blow out candles with our minds. We played with Ouija boards, watched "The Craft" and I bought books on channeling. It was thrilling to think I might be able to connect with some "force" out in the universe and use it to control my life, and very disappointing when it didn't work.
In high school I was taught that Christianity was a tool that Western man used to manipulate his control over the world. My first year in college, I learned that it was the Eastern religions that truly promoted peace, and Christianity preached mainly intolerance. Like my father, I learned to worship knowledge above all else, and I thought myself very sophisticated for not being ensnared by the silliness and "evil" of organized religion.
And then I met Adam.
I hated him. He was an awkward, arrogant know-it-all. Even worse, he was a crazy conservative, fanatical Christian. And I had to give him my phone number and my instant-messenger screenname because we had been paired up, by default, for our class presentation. Within a week he was my boyfriend; my only explanation at this point is that God must have reached down and scrambled my brain.
In the first two months of our relationship we endured both the Yankees losing the World Series to the Red Sox (Adam cried) and the re-election of President George W. Bush (I cried). We argued about sports, politics, economics, his friends, my friends, money, and time. We should have been through. Again, there's no explanation for the endurance of our relationship other than the hand of God.
Over the months that we were together, I started to see that Adam had a supernatural ability for grace (though I didn't know that was what it was called at the time). He was so generous, so forgiving, so genuinely friendly it was infuriating. I could not figure out what made him the way he was. When I asked him, he said it was God, Christianity, something like that. I don't remember his exact answer. My God-shaped-hole-filled heart started pounding.
I wanted so badly for him to invite me to church, but I had scared him away from it with my rants and tirades against the hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christians. It took weeks (months?), but I finally asked him if I could go (how humiliating!) and I started attending with him and his family. I waited until they were all out of town one week to go on my own and respond to the altar call. I didn't want the fuss and fanfare from him, and I didn't want his mother to know I wasn't a Christian already. It was October 2, 2005 - one year and one day after we had started dating - and that time, I know for sure I was saved.
For a long time I thought that day was where my testimony was supposed to end. I don't know where I got the idea, but for some reason I always believed that your "testimony" is the story of how you came to receive salvation. Now I finally know that the story doesn't end there - salvation is only the first step in the Christian walk. That was over four years ago, and if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share with you what knowing God for four years has been like for me.
For almost two years after accepting Christ (for real this time), I was just learning the basics. At church, I learned how I had sinned against my God and how He had cleansed me of those sins. I learned about justification through faith alone. I learned that my baptism wasn't what I thought it was.
I learned mostly doctrine in those first years: what it meant, intellectually, to be a Christian. I discovered that, as I had suspected when I was just a child, there was a lot more to it than agreeing that Jesus is God and living by the Golden Rule. It was good to know that I had found what I needed to fill the hole in my heart, and that I finally had someone to take me by the hand and guide me through the journey.
But it wasn't until September of 2007, when Adam and I had been married for four months, that I really began to engage with God. Until that time, I had been an infant in the faith, still fed on milk and not ready for solid food. But praise God - my heart came alive when I was roped into attending my first Beth Moore retreat, "Loving Well." I had never known before what it was to apply God's word to how you lived your life. I never knew before how personal He was. I never knew you could feel like that about God.
Beth had something I knew I wanted. I signed up for the first Beth Moore Bible study I could ("Stepping Up," it is wonderful) and hung on her every word while she taught me how to study the Bible. In 2008 I walked with God like I had never known was possible - He lived and reigned in me, and He changed the person I was.
I regret to say that 2009 was different. It started off well - I had been feeling for several months that God had been calling me to get re-baptized, truly baptized, as a Christian. In fact, He even gave me a deadline - I had to do it before I had children. I signed up for the next baptism at my church - there is one every month - and it was scheduled for February 22nd. I was sick all night the night before and believed that Satan was trying to keep me from my baptism. But it was not, in fact, Satan. My husband made me take a pregnancy test before we left for church and it came back positive. I knew then that God was absolutely serious about his timing.
That morning when I was baptized was probably the last reigning moment in my life in 2009. Once the reality of the pregnancy hit me, I succumbed to fear. I could no longer pray "thy will be done" - what if God's will was to take this child from me? I couldn't live with myself if I told God I'd still love and trust him even through a miscarriage, and then I did miscarry. It would be like giving Him permission to do something awful to me! I stopped trusting God right then and there and hoarded my pregnant belly all to myself. I even led a Bible study that year, all while refusing to trust Him with my life or my child's life.
Three months after Hosanna (Anna) was born, the guilt and shame finally caught up with me, and I knew I had to return to my God with my tail between my legs. At the beginning of this year I confessed it all to Him, and, though I should not have been, was pleasantly surprised to find his grace and forgiveness ready and waiting. The prodigal returned and was showered with love and bathed in abundant grace - the very blessings with which I now write this blog. I pray I will never turn from Him again.
To begin at the beginning, I am one of those people who, for a long time, thought I was "born Christian." Actually, I was born into a home where being a Lutheran (capital "L") was much more important than being a Christian, and since I was baptized into the Lutheran church, I didn't really have anything to worry about on that front. For my family, religion was never really about God so much as it was about tradition and family heritage. My grandmother was baptized in the same church in which my mother was baptized and confirmed, my parents were married, my sister was baptized and confirmed, and I was baptized. (The only reason I wasn't confirmed there is that we moved away, never again to join a church because none of them, according to Mom, were enough "like home.")
I can remember when I was small asking my parents how Christianity was different from other religions, or what it meant to be a Christian, and receiving the answer that if you believed that Jesus was God, you were a Christian and going to Heaven. I also remember something about having to follow the Golden Rule. Interestingly, as uninformed as this approach was, it was not legalistic. My parents didn't tell me I had to follow the ten commandments or live by the rules in the Bible in order to be saved, just that I had to believe that Jesus was God and basically "be a good person."
It was never really enough for me.
I know now how uncomfortable I made my parents with my constant desire for more religion in my life. It seems I was aware of the God-shaped hole we are all born with in our hearts earlier than most, which is what makes the ridiculous amount of time it took me to find what fit inside so tragic. Anyway, I can remember not understanding why we didn't read the Bible and trying for a few weeks when I was maybe eight years old to read one chapter aloud to my parents before dinner each night. Obviously, it didn't last.
Around twelve, I had a friend who I thought could help me. She probably could have, to tell the truth. She led me through the Sinner's Prayer and I asked Christ to be my savior. I went down to the Christian bookstore and bought myself an NIV Bible. I started reading and highlighting in Psalms, wanting so badly to understand what God was telling me, but winding up feeling overwhelmed by what I didn't know or just didn't "get." She and her parents took me to church with them for a few weeks at a non-denominational mega-church in town, but my parents disapproved of a church with no organ where people wore jeans and I buckled under the pressure and stopped attending. With no one to guide me, I abandoned the endeavor. I'm foggy on whether or not I was actually saved at that point; I meant what I said in the prayer, but I don't know if I understood it or not. Regardless, I wandered away from Jesus a lost sheep, whether He was my shepherd at that point or not.
But my search for spirituality didn't end, and some of my new friends at my new school introduced me to the idea of Wicca and/or Paganism (I don't think even they knew the difference at the time). We sat in circles at night and tried to blow out candles with our minds. We played with Ouija boards, watched "The Craft" and I bought books on channeling. It was thrilling to think I might be able to connect with some "force" out in the universe and use it to control my life, and very disappointing when it didn't work.
In high school I was taught that Christianity was a tool that Western man used to manipulate his control over the world. My first year in college, I learned that it was the Eastern religions that truly promoted peace, and Christianity preached mainly intolerance. Like my father, I learned to worship knowledge above all else, and I thought myself very sophisticated for not being ensnared by the silliness and "evil" of organized religion.
And then I met Adam.
I hated him. He was an awkward, arrogant know-it-all. Even worse, he was a crazy conservative, fanatical Christian. And I had to give him my phone number and my instant-messenger screenname because we had been paired up, by default, for our class presentation. Within a week he was my boyfriend; my only explanation at this point is that God must have reached down and scrambled my brain.
In the first two months of our relationship we endured both the Yankees losing the World Series to the Red Sox (Adam cried) and the re-election of President George W. Bush (I cried). We argued about sports, politics, economics, his friends, my friends, money, and time. We should have been through. Again, there's no explanation for the endurance of our relationship other than the hand of God.
Over the months that we were together, I started to see that Adam had a supernatural ability for grace (though I didn't know that was what it was called at the time). He was so generous, so forgiving, so genuinely friendly it was infuriating. I could not figure out what made him the way he was. When I asked him, he said it was God, Christianity, something like that. I don't remember his exact answer. My God-shaped-hole-filled heart started pounding.
I wanted so badly for him to invite me to church, but I had scared him away from it with my rants and tirades against the hypocrisy of fundamentalist Christians. It took weeks (months?), but I finally asked him if I could go (how humiliating!) and I started attending with him and his family. I waited until they were all out of town one week to go on my own and respond to the altar call. I didn't want the fuss and fanfare from him, and I didn't want his mother to know I wasn't a Christian already. It was October 2, 2005 - one year and one day after we had started dating - and that time, I know for sure I was saved.
For a long time I thought that day was where my testimony was supposed to end. I don't know where I got the idea, but for some reason I always believed that your "testimony" is the story of how you came to receive salvation. Now I finally know that the story doesn't end there - salvation is only the first step in the Christian walk. That was over four years ago, and if you'll indulge me, I'd like to share with you what knowing God for four years has been like for me.
For almost two years after accepting Christ (for real this time), I was just learning the basics. At church, I learned how I had sinned against my God and how He had cleansed me of those sins. I learned about justification through faith alone. I learned that my baptism wasn't what I thought it was.
I learned mostly doctrine in those first years: what it meant, intellectually, to be a Christian. I discovered that, as I had suspected when I was just a child, there was a lot more to it than agreeing that Jesus is God and living by the Golden Rule. It was good to know that I had found what I needed to fill the hole in my heart, and that I finally had someone to take me by the hand and guide me through the journey.
But it wasn't until September of 2007, when Adam and I had been married for four months, that I really began to engage with God. Until that time, I had been an infant in the faith, still fed on milk and not ready for solid food. But praise God - my heart came alive when I was roped into attending my first Beth Moore retreat, "Loving Well." I had never known before what it was to apply God's word to how you lived your life. I never knew before how personal He was. I never knew you could feel like that about God.
Beth had something I knew I wanted. I signed up for the first Beth Moore Bible study I could ("Stepping Up," it is wonderful) and hung on her every word while she taught me how to study the Bible. In 2008 I walked with God like I had never known was possible - He lived and reigned in me, and He changed the person I was.
I regret to say that 2009 was different. It started off well - I had been feeling for several months that God had been calling me to get re-baptized, truly baptized, as a Christian. In fact, He even gave me a deadline - I had to do it before I had children. I signed up for the next baptism at my church - there is one every month - and it was scheduled for February 22nd. I was sick all night the night before and believed that Satan was trying to keep me from my baptism. But it was not, in fact, Satan. My husband made me take a pregnancy test before we left for church and it came back positive. I knew then that God was absolutely serious about his timing.
That morning when I was baptized was probably the last reigning moment in my life in 2009. Once the reality of the pregnancy hit me, I succumbed to fear. I could no longer pray "thy will be done" - what if God's will was to take this child from me? I couldn't live with myself if I told God I'd still love and trust him even through a miscarriage, and then I did miscarry. It would be like giving Him permission to do something awful to me! I stopped trusting God right then and there and hoarded my pregnant belly all to myself. I even led a Bible study that year, all while refusing to trust Him with my life or my child's life.
Three months after Hosanna (Anna) was born, the guilt and shame finally caught up with me, and I knew I had to return to my God with my tail between my legs. At the beginning of this year I confessed it all to Him, and, though I should not have been, was pleasantly surprised to find his grace and forgiveness ready and waiting. The prodigal returned and was showered with love and bathed in abundant grace - the very blessings with which I now write this blog. I pray I will never turn from Him again.
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