Posts Tagged ‘Christian Living’

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“I’m So Sorry, Mommy…”

Thursday, November 24th, 2011

conversion-storyMy daughter Rachel ran into my room and burst out crying, “I’m so sorry, Mommy…” This was the second time in one week she had confessed her sin before I found out what she did. The first time was a few days previous, when she told me that she had stuffed some math pages behind her bed so she wouldn’t have to do them.

“What did you do now?” I asked her through her tears.

“I cut the beaded doorway with the scissors.”

Walking to the kitchen, I saw two strands of the beaded doorway cut. I was visibly disappointed, because our entire family had enjoyed going in and out of the doorway, swishing the beads. I had found that at a yard sale over the summer, and the odds of finding another one for $3 were slim to none.

She wailed, because perhaps she had liked the doorway the most. She and I walked into my room, and I sat down with her. My daughter has a knack for getting into trouble.

“The reason you do bad things is because you don’t have Jesus living in you. You can’t help but sin,” I said. “Would you like to have Jesus in your life, helping you to do what’s right?”

“Yes,” she said. I could see that she understood her depravity for the first time. I presented the gospel, which she had heard before, but somehow never appropriated to herself. I said that Jesus died for her sin.

“But I wasn’t born back then,” said my daughter.

“Jesus died for your sin before you were born. He paid the price for the sin of everyone who would believe in Him. Your sin deserves death, and He died so that you could have a relationship with Him.”

She wanted to know how to ask Christ into her life. I was so excited, I called my husband. “Can I lead her to Christ without you? She’s ready.” My husband said to do whatever God was leading me to do. So I hung up the phone and led her to Christ.

Every year when Rachel gets her MRI for the lump on her back, I never know if she will need surgery and die. Every year I have to put her on the altar of my life and choose Christ above my daughter. And every year I wonder when the age of accountability is, and that if she were to die, would I know that I would see her again in heaven.

Now with tears streaming down my face, I don’t have to wonder any more. And for this I am truly grateful.

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Delayed Gratification is Still Coveting

Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

delayed-gratification-is-still-coveting

How long is your wish list? When you see something that you want at a store, do you buy it right away, or do you wait and pray about whether God wants you to have it or not?

I used to go the mall with my best friend, looking through the store windows. I would see a pair of black lace-up boots that would look lovely with a dress I had. So I would go inside, only to find out they cost over $100. Oh, well, I thought to myself. Some day when I’m rich…

But even though I delayed my gratification, I still coveted those boots. Just because I didn’t plunge myself into debt doesn’t mean that I didn’t covet those boots just as much as the woman who did purchase them. Yes, wisdom dictates waiting before purchasing a larger-ticket item, especially if you can’t afford it. But then you think, “What if I come back and they’re all gone?” Does that line of thinking justify my purchase?

On the other hand, God is a loving God who lavishes gifts on us. Time after time God has provided extreme luxuries for me just suddenly out of the blue, providing miraculously something I didn’t deserve. Like the anniversary trip to the Bahamas, where I got the tickets dirt cheap because it was hurricane season. And then instead of vomiting the entire time (which I was expecting due to the weather forecast), God put His hands around the ship and gave us sunshine all day every single day. God is rich. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and He owns me. He owns the hurricanes and storms that were all over the radar, making my sister wring her hands as she prayed for me.

I thought about the thousands of people who died in Japan and Haiti because of a tsunami or an earthquake. The weather <BOOM> killed thousands in one moment. And yet God protected one ship in the middle of a radar with red swirls everywhere. Did God sweetly protect our ship just for Alan and me, because we needed rest so badly after a sad year of suffering? Did my cry reach the ears of God, and did He alter the weather just for me?

Yes, I believe He did. My God controls everything. He rules. Not a single atom is out of His control at any moment.

So God is lavish, even though He sometimes allows us to go through horrendous suffering. I’m not saying that God is stingy, or that you have to have a poverty mentality where you can never have anything you want, hanging your head in a resigned manner. No.

But the vast majority of the things we covet aren’t even what God would want for us. The bigger TV only causes us to spend more time with our idolatry. The cute clothes make us look in the mirror and have vanity. The gorgeous house makes us look at other people’s houses with contempt, because we have better taste.

Our goal in life becomes the accumulation of more and more pieces of matter, arranged carefully around us. The pieces of junk magnify our sin, or they create new areas of sin. They are just pieces of matter that will be burned up at the end of the world. They distract us from our relationship with our Creator.

So are you content? How long is your wish list? Where is your heart?

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The Secret of Contentment is Suffering

Monday, November 21st, 2011

secret-of-contentment-is-suffering

Have you ever noticed that people who have never suffered take things for granted and aren’t thankful at all? They just keep wanting more, more, more. They think physical bits of junk will make them happy, and they don’t realize that the shopping high only lasts a day or two, and then the new items are thrown aside, and discontentment sets in again.

Most American women are like this about their homes, too. They are never satisfied. If they finish a renovation, instead of enjoying it, they look around for something else that they are not happy about, and they are never in a state where they can take a deep breath, relax, and be content.

I remember for years I had a large sliding door with a broken window. We nailed a board across the window on the outside, and on the inside we nailed a blanket so as to prevent a draft. It was super ugly. And yet I was content, and I relaxed, knowing that I wouldn’t fix it for years because we didn’t have the money.

Why was I so content, even with unfinished, ugly things? Because my heart isn’t there. Everything doesn’t have to be perfect before I relax. I used to be that way. When you’re pregnant especially, you have a strong nesting instinct where you want the house to be perfect before the baby arrives. I remember that strong urge; it was almost physical. It was a compulsion. And yet with the ugly broken window, I was content and didn’t have to think about how unhappy I was about the window. I WASN’T unhappy. I was sweetly content in my soul. I had peace. Why?

The secret of contentment is suffering.

I have a husband who loves me, and my children aren’t dead. Who cares that my house isn’t perfect if my children are alive? I love them. I have food and shelter. For 6 months in England, I lived in a room with no heat, with ice INSIDE the windows. My whole body hurt badly, and I could see my breath in the morning.

Who cares about the board nailed across the window when I have heat?

You know what I’m saying? The man who slammed the butt of his gun against my head, giving me a partial concussion, didn’t kill me. I’m still alive. I’m breathing. I got married and had babies. I LOVE my life! Who cares about the undone things, the ugly kitchen with the 70’s carpet, or the orange shag rug downstairs which is as ugly as it gets? Who cares? I don’t even care if my house burns to the ground. My heart isn’t here.

I love God. He is where my heart is. And I would scream and probably lose my mind if I lost my husband and children, but I would eventually be okay, because my God rules in the heavens, and He is a good God, and He will never allow anything to occur to me that will not result in the absolute greatest benefit to me. Yes, the horrors of my life have been transformed into immense treasure for me. So what have I to fear? What can man do to me when God is my anchor?

Meanwhile I will cling to and treasure my husband and children, because today they still breathe, and nothing else matters. I don’t feel a compulsion to buy more junk to wear, or more junk for my house, continuously unsatisfied. God is my satisfaction, because through suffering I was able to learn what really matters in this life.

“I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Him who gives me strength.” Philippians 4:12-13

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Don’t Force Your Children to Be Grateful

Thursday, November 17th, 2011

Thankfulness is choked out of our children by us trying to “make them grateful.” This happened to me. I grew up being thankful, but then I felt forced to be thankful, and suddenly I wasn’t thankful any more, because I felt that the only reason the other person gave me something was for me to be grateful to them. Forget it. Don’t give me a present. Can’t you see I loved it? Why do I have to chant stupid words for people not to be upset and angry and threaten to never give me anything again? It makes me want to dump the thing on the floor and walk away. I do not feel loved by a person who demands thankfulness. I don’t. I feel that they’re in it for what they can get out of it.

This affected my relationship with God. I felt that relationships were an exchange where you now had to be grateful. And even though I had always been grateful for Christ’s death on the cross, I now saw Christ’s death as something He did so that we would be grateful, and if we weren’t grateful, we weren’t allowed to have a relationship with Him. It suddenly felt selfish on God’s side, and I knew this was a warped and demonic view caused by being forced to be thankful to have a relationship with another person. This view, by the way, is completely wrong. Christ didn’t die to make us grateful; He died to free us from sin. It wasn’t for anything He could get out of us. Christ died for us expecting nothing in return. Anything good in us is because of Him anyway, and our deep love for Him includes gratefulness, but it was never demanded. It was spontaneous due to love.

I wish the person could have seen my eyes, that I was truly grateful with all my heart before she demanded it, and that after demanding it, it was suddenly gone. In its place was the wrong feeling that the other person was selfish and demanding, and I wanted no part of it.

It took me years to get over it. Then gradually God gave me back my gratefulness, but it took a painful process. Now I’m more grateful than I’ve ever been in my life, but it’s because of the grace of God, God directly teaching me about it and convicting me and transforming me. Because the way I had been acting toward this other person had been sinful.

So how did I teach my own children to be thankful? Anyone who has been invited to my children’s birthday parties can attest to the fact that I have the most thankful children on the face of the earth. Yes, in third world countries you see children who are so extremely grateful, and they’ve never been taught gratefulness. My children are identical to that. They are so excited at anything that is given to them, even if it’s a cheap toy from the dollar store. They even say thank you, though I didn’t force them to do that. In good conscience, the only thing I could do is to thank the people myself when they gave my child a toy. I quietly thanked them, not for the sake of the child to hear. But when my children heard my real thankfulness, they emulated it and actually said it.

My children burst with thankfulness, but it’s not because I forced them to say it. It’s because I myself said thank you to the giver for the sake of the giver not being offended. I didn’t care whether my children said it or not because their whole body already indicated that they were grateful. And in being genuine in my speaking directly to the giver, my children now say thank you continuously, and it bursts out of their soul.

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