And then there were none

YAY! Lakota East is performing their show after the ridiculous political correctness issue that almost cancelled it. They have had to change the title from 10 Little Indians to And Then There Were None but whatever makes the PC crowd happy I guess. Thing is, the "crowd" was mostly one guy who owns a diversity education business. And ironically is the president of the local chapter of the NAACP...Advancement of Colored People...um...When was the last time the phrase "colored people" wasn't frowned upon?

Sigh...

Anyway...Good for the admin at Lakota East for making it so the kids who gave their time and energy to rehearse this show (which really has little to do with Indians or African Americans) could perform it.

Longing for the end of satan's reign

Baby Grace, a 2-year old was murdered by her parents...She

was beaten with leather belts, had her head held underwater in a bathtub and then was thrown across a room, her head slamming into a tile floor, Trenor said in the document. She said they kept the body in a storage shed for one to two months before they put it in a plastic bin and dumped it into Galveston Bay. (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,313001,00.html)

And to think I whined today because I had to re-order tickets to a show.

Fare thee well (aka - a first step toward nakedness!)

Fare thee well

So, after sleeping and talking to My Heavenly Father about it I have looked at the status of a couple of my relationships...The damage I have done to people I said I cared about and likewise the damage that has been done to me...And this is not a poor pitiful me post. This is me finally facing the truth of things. I have been duplicitous in
trying to stay in good graces with people I didn;t want to see leave my life while at the same time not completely trusting them either. so I'd pretend that all was well when really, I was being sort of superficial. I'd pretend not to be of course. I'm a peace maker...But as I have recently learned through the teachings of a wise and gifted woman of God, this kind of peace is a false peace that does nothing but harbor and breed ugliness. Eventually that ugliness will come out. But that is a good thing...The truth will set you free.

The truth is that I have been a gossip. And I have hurt people. The things I said may have been true, they may have been helpful to the person I was saying them to...But they were certainly not necessary and they were not kind.

Father, forgive me.

The truth also is that I have ignored my gut in many ways. I find myself having dug myself into something that had I listened to the voice that said "boundaries are not unGodly and not unloving" none of it would have happened.

We live and we learn.

Today I liberate myself and my loved ones from the captivity of this mess. Boundaries indeed are not unGodly, even 2 of the apostles finally saw that it was better for everyone if they went their seperate ways. We can love and care for people without being enmeshed.

I ask for forgiveness from the people I have hurt. I ask for there to be an understanding that distance does not equal hatred or ill-will. And an understanding that I am thankful for good times and even rough times.

My path goes another way this morning and I am at peace. Finally at peace.

My best to those that I love. And perhaps one day we'll share again in something more.

Naked on the cross

My friend once told me that I would not fully experience life with Christ until I was willing to be "naked on the cross"...That is to say, when I am able to remove anything that keeps me from expressing to God my true heart...That is not to say that Jesus does not fully love me or that my life with Him thus far has been inadequate. It is simply that He cannot fully heal me until I expose to Him all of my wounds. Even the ones I try to keep under a band-aid because I think they aren't worth tending to or I don't feel justified in crying about.

My pain tolerance has always been low. When my mom would comb my hair and hit any knot I would scream and cry. It truly, truly hurt - even if she thought it shouldn't. My mom eventually cut my hair into the "Dorothy Hamil" so that it wouldn't hurt so much to comb.

So it became in my soul: Prevent the tears to keep it from hurting (nevermind the fact that even short hair gets tangled).

For decades I have neatly tucked away and superficially forgiven "little" hurts because I wasn't sure they worth crying over. Or if I was even justified in feeling bothered by them. That's a lot of little things that add up to a tidal wave of tears pressing against my insides. Unconsciously or consciously I knew that if I started to cry I wouldn't be able to stop. This may even account for my avoidance of movies or books that I know have tear triggers for me (if an animal or child is likely to die forget it) Bambi - I hate it. Old Yeller/Sounder/The Yearling/The Old Testament - No Thank you!

Today I find that something in me is breaking. Maybe it was the book I stayed up late to read that chronicles 3 lives of sacrifice and unconditional love. Maybe it is the heaviness of experiencing when friends grow away from each other. Whatever the catalyst, the flood gates started to leak last night and this morning were pushed further.

In evaluating this unsettling feeling, I see that my band-aids are coming loose. To my surprise there are bloody scabs where fresh skin should be. These are wounds that I have too quickly covered before applying the ointment of God's love and counsel. Probably because I thought they were just surface wounds...But even a skinned knee should be washed with soap and parental kisses, should it not?

God has likely been tugging at my sloppy tourniquets for years. It is probably not coincidence that the Beth Moore study I recently did discussed this very thing. Among other things, Moore says submitting to God includes turning over our hurts.

Psalm 147:3 says "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds"

Moore expounds on this in the vernacular of full submission, pointing to Jesus' example in Hebrew 5:7.

She says:
"You have to let the Holy Spirit into the depths so that there is nowhere inside that has a shred of control that is saying 'I am mad about that'."

When you refuse to accept something you cannot change or you refuse to bring all of your hurt before God, you

"write yourself a living death sentence.... You will not be whole..Being whole means being still and letting Him tend to the wounds of inevitable life....If you do not let God bind your wounds as they occur they will stay bloody until you do. And it will continue to come up sometime, somewhere."

And so it has been for me.

I begin now the process of finding and removing those hidden band-aids and showing my hurts to my Heavenly Father who wipes away all tears.

He wipes away all tears... I just now internalized that he cannot wipe away tears that I refuse to shed.

Yet, how painful and terrifying it will be to let them go.

What will I see in the faces of those around me when I hang naked on the cross?

Thanksgiving Girls

Me and Melody! My awesome, talented, theatrical niece!

Too Sexy

She looks for love in boys and toys.

And sometimes girls if she's feeling coy.

She has attitude and a short fuse.

She tosses her hair and flashes her blues.

She'll smile and nod if a boy will talk.

And sway her little hips on the cat walk.

She'll take it just to have it.

She'll hide it just to keep it.

She takes her booze only from the tap.

And knows what to find on a boy in their lap.

Some would say she's a streetwise whore.

It might be true if she were more than four.

A little girl who is a woman.

A woman who was never a girl.

Divine Appointment

I was walking to the BP station up the street.

God nudged me to the right and said "Head to Christian Club Coffee House"

I said Good Morning to a stranger - a woman about 60 years old.

She asked me where the bus stop was to go to Warsaw.

I said "It would be heading down that way" and pointed East.

She said she'd been walking around since 5am because her friends told her she had to get out and her ride had already left.

God kept poking me.

I asked where she lived. She told me.

It wasn't far.

I offered her a ride (trying to squelch all the fears and anxieties about riding strangers in your car).

She said she didn't have money to pay me. I told her it was God's car and she didn't need to pay me.

She did a double take.

We headed to my house and she said she had been around the block 3 times and was about to give up. She said God must have sent me to her.

I think God sent her to me.

On the way home she asked if I went to church. I said I did and asked if she did. She said not in a long time. I gave her an outreach card and said she was welcome at my church anytime.

We arrived at her house. God said I should give her the $5 in my pocket and tell her to get some breakfast.

I did.

She wept.

She said "You don't know anything about me."

I said "I know that God loves you."

She hugged me and I heard her mumble "I don't even love myself".

My heart broke.

I hope that she comes to church.

I have been blessed today by a wandering stranger.

Hooha about Golden Compass

There's a lot of talk going on about the new film The Golden Compass.

I read the entire trilogy a few years back not realizing what the author's intentions were until the end.

Philip Pullman is indeed and atheist. He is also an excellent writer. He also, IMHO, probably did more to encourage belief in God than convince people that atheism is the way to go. The series is very interesting and pretty much keeps you into it from start to finish. Once I realized what he was communicating I was disappointed after having stuck with the series all the way through. I thought perhaps these characters would find some resolve.

The way the last book ends is very sad and leaves you feeling kind of empty and hopeless. I thought "Man. I'm glad I don't live in this world that this guy has created." I would think most people will walk away thinking life is better with at least the hope of God than to live like the protagonists end up living - separate, alone and longing.

And if this expresses the way Pullman feels in his soul, then he needs a lot of prayer. I am reminded that it is not flesh and blood that we war against. Our battle is not with Pullman. It is with our enemy who seeks to destroy - and who has found a great vehicle in a broken writer who somewhere along the way was lied to about God.

What must Pullman have seen/experienced that would lead him to write about a sinister organization that seperates children from their souls and have that be his idea of what God is about? What toxic idea of God has he been fed? I'd love to get into his past and find out...And I'd like to send him a letter that says "Forget everything you have ever heard about God if it doesn't begin and end with love".

Father, may the love of Christ seep through my pours. Let the healing truth of Your abundance flow from my mouth to those lost and deceived around me. And help me be ready with ears to listen to the stories of the damaged people who lash out against You from their brokenness...So that I might be the bearer of the Truth that will set them free.

My life as a mute

My life as a mute

Ok, so all last year we had no health insurance and God was sooo faithful. He protected us fully and we had not a sniffle. It was amazing to be under that kind of protection! It's so cool to have my Father be the Creator and ruler of the universe!

Now that I have my job back with benefits I think our extra provision has been lifted since we're OK to face life's bumps and bruises once again. :) Dennis has injured his ankle twice and I was hit with a nasty virus last week. Sore throat, cough, and laryngitis. The doc told me I was not allowed to talk until the laryngitis passed to protect my vocal folds from getting nodules...So I was mute for 3 days! I didn't say a single word from 1:30pm Friday til Monday! It was definitely a challenge! I used a lot of sign language and this little dry erase borard I acquired while working at University Hospital.

Far be it from God to allow his children to suffer without a higher purpose...Being speechless turned out to be really interesting!...I had to do a whole lot more listening and I got to do a lot of observing. I also had to think about what was worth "saying" and what could be kept to myself so that I wasn't playing charades or writing novels on the dry erase board. That alone kept me focused on what was really important.

Case in point, at dinner with Den's family last Sunday, the others got into a tense discussion about something...I knew whose "side" I would have taken had I been able to talk and I had plenty to say...But I just listened, taking all of it in. At one point Lori looked at me and said, "you have so much you'd like to say don;t you?" I smiled amd shrugged. She laughed and said "It's probably best kept to yourself anyway, huh?". And she was right. Me flapping my gums and adding my 2 cents would have made no difference to anything in that conversation...It just would have made me feel good for exercising my opinion muscle (which gets plenty of exercise!) How many times have I wasted the breath that God gave me on pointlessness?

This isn't to say that gabbing is bad or speaking my mind is evil. I don't believe we should all live daily in Monk-like silence. But truly I see how much better spent my brain's language center and my voice could be if I'd practice being quick to listen and slow to speak.

I think I might try this "mute" strategy if ever I feel like I am out of balance in this area. Or maybe I should use it in general when I talk to to anyone?? Who knows...It's worth trying!

Oh! And God is so funny...I went to worship last Saturday thinking how hard it would be to not sing and praise like I usually do...Well, it turned out that the worship leader had also been given orders not to sing because he had damaged his voice. He talked about how hard it would be to stand up there playing his guitar but not singing. But he said he would instead focus on listening to the words and really letting the messages in the songs fill his heart. And he said "if there is anyone else here tonight who isn't able to sing or doesn't like to sing, I invite you to do the same"...I mean, what are the chances?? God rocks!

Today I woke up with pink eye...But I am not sure I am ready to be thrust into the world of the blind so hopefully it will clear up soon!!

Helen