Teenage Tantrums

I had a special meeting with God a couple of weeks ago. I asked Him some difficult questions about the story He has written through my life. There are parts of the story that have been difficult to carry at times. I was railing against His plan, much like a rebellious teenager. I wanted what I wanted, how I wanted it, when I wanted it and didn't want to compromise or consider other options. God let me rant and rave. In fact I think He might have welcomed my tantrums. He says he doesn't like luke warm responses to His call. I've been giving Him too much luke warm lately. In the end when I had come to the end of myself, God came for me just as He promises.

The photo was taken by someone I didn't know. I wasn't aware the photograph was being taken. The photographer was taking a photo of someone she didn't know and she wasn't sure the subject would want this moment captured.

I am grateful that this moment was captured for me. It's me offering an apology to God for being ungrateful for His story that He's writing through me. It's a moment of deep worship for me as I had battled the Enemy of my soul, and once again I won - and God wooed me back to a deeper walk with him. When I sense resistance and struggle, I can go back to this picture and be reminded of God's promises to come for me in my deepest times of battle.

Thank you LaDonna for taking this photo. It's a gift to me - a reminder of a very sacred meeting with God on the shores of Lake Michigan.

Caring for myself

Why is it so hard to take time for me - to do the things that will rest me, make me healthier, refresh me? I can find an entire to-do list that has priority over walking or taking time to write or just read by the ponds.

Who says we can't come first at times? Where are the lies that tell us that everything else must be in order before we can indulge in ourselves. Those are insidious lies that keep us bound to doing for everyone else while sacrificing ourselves. And really - it's not sacrifice. It's idolaltry. It's saying that to-do lists and others' expectations are more important than taking time for ourselves. Sounds like a set up for self pity.

God calls us to take care of our body - He calls it our temple. When I'm in a "temple" or fancy church, shrine, or cathedral, there is a reverence that is there for that place. When I choose not to do the right things for my body - my temple - where is the reverence? Where is hearing God's word that says care for myself.

If I continue to dismiss my personal needs, I soon begin to serve others out of emptiness. Sadly, I've learned from experience that is a dangerous place from which to serve. It can lead to harming others with my contempt, my feeling used (even though I've done it to myself!) and my resentment of those I'm serving.

So.....today I WILL walk my 1/2 hour and I will spend time floating in the pool. Yes, there is laundry to do, e-mails to answer and others to care for. But..........for a short hour out of a busy day, I'll care for myself.

In what ways do you care appropriately for yourself?

Tomorrow is a day of packing, making lists, checking the lists and preparing for a week up north. Once again I'll be at SALTS - Survivors of Abuse Leadership Training. For the past 9 years I've been a co-leader, taking our participants through a personal grace group journey to understand themselves and their story better while learning to lead others through this journey of restoration.

Restoration from what? From wounding, disappointment, unmet longings, trauma and struggles with relationships and life in general.

If you are interested, check out www.ohmin.org or check out Open Hearts Ministry in Facebook. There you will get the bigger picture of what we are called to do.

Next week is a bit of a gift for me. I will be the participant looking more deeply into my dignity and my depravity. Am I afraid? No! Am I curious? Yes! Will there be tough times, tears, a fight against shame and old lies? Yes! Will I be sad and glad? Yes and maybe both at the same time! We call that ambivalence.

What will I have heard from God by Saturday morning - a week away? That remains a mystery to be revealed by Him as the week progresses.

If past experience is any measuring stick, I'll receive warm hugs, lots of smiles, hopeful words after difficult moments, and be reminded that spiritual community is often much more safe and comforting that biological family. I'm going home in some respects to revisit friends, colleagues, fellow participants -- those I can truly be myself with, knowing I'll be held in high esteem, cared for well, held accountable in truth with grace and I will grow in areas that still need growth.

If you are curious about the process, the week, or the ministry, check out www.ohmin.org or connect with me via blog or at embracedbyhope@juno.com. That's my e-mail for the ministry I direct here in Georgia. I'd love to chat with you about restoration in your own life.

I've had a longing in the past to own a little red sports car. I do come from a racing family and have some racing blood in me. Image probably also propelled my longing. Wouldn't I look spiffy in a little red sports car!

It's a really impractical dream. I'm always carting home a tree or bush or several huge bags of mulch or dirt, not to speak of an old chair or goodie I might find discarded along the road. Where would I put any of that in a little red sports car. Also to be considered is the initial cost of such a toy, the price of insurance and the cost of gas to propel it.


On our way to the Arc d'Triumph in Paris, we encountered quite a few racy little cars in red and black in the parking garage. This one I'm standing by probably cost around $225,000. God hasn't deposited that kind of money in my earthly band account so I guess this little red number is out of the question.

Actually, I don't have that dream anymore. It was a silly one and God has been the wiser not to fulfill it.

There are other dreams and longings that God isn't fulfilling for me. Some aren't silly, inappropriate or impractical. They seem quite reasonable from my point of view. So what do I do with these unmet longings and dreams. Will I wait in hope and faith. Will I take "NO" from God with a pleasant attitude. Will I trust that He really does know what my future is and what I really need? Will I trust and live in faith while waiting on unmet longings and dreams? It can be a tough place to sit and sit well. Right now I'm sitting well. This morning I wasn't.

No, God doesn't likely have a little red sports car in my life plan. But He does have other things for me. Will I surrender my longings and dreams to Him and trust that the ones He honors are those that are best for me?

I long to! Now........that's a good longing.

This cross stands in the American Cemetery above Normandy beach and the Omaha invasion in France. The writing on the cross doesn't carry a name or rank. It says "here lies a soldier known only to God......." I was overwhelmed to find so many just like this one - unknown - only to God. I gently rubbed my hand over each one I came to as I walked the cemetery, grateful for the sacrifice of so many on my behalf.

I wondered what determination and courage it took for these young men to travel to a world they didn't know, to fight for people they would never meet, to leave behind families who would never know their final hours, to stand so valiantly for a cause they so strongly believed in.

And because of their sacrifice and the sacrifice of many like them, I live free to choose where I worship, what I will eat and wear, when I will speak and what I choose to speak, and many more freedoms that I often take for granted.

I am grateful and moved to be more conscious of the grace I live under - that which God bestowed on me and the freedoms I enjoy - bought for me by the lives of many I will never know. It's a sobering and hopeful thought.

Will I stand and sacrifice as willingly for the causes I believe in? How about you?

Water - gentle or fierce

The upper left photo is the gently moving river in front of our home in the north woods. The upper right photo is one of God's majestic water falls in northern Canada. And the lower left photo is of our two new ponds, recently constructed by my son, husband and me. Water is a place of quiet and serenity for me. However, in the past week I've seen water be a raging and fierce source of damage and destruction. We are in the area that received 18 inches of water last week with another 2 to 3 falling this past Saturday. Many of our friends and acquaintances are flooded out, having lost everything. It's been frightening to see the effects of water raging into places it was never intended to be and never been before. There are scenes that are unimaganeable unless seen with your own eye. And there has been tragedy in the loss of lives. Stuff can be replaced, people can not. In the midst of the muck and mire is a miracle story that I want to share. A mother and her five children lost everything in the flood, including their car which was swept into the raging waters and destroyed. Her husband had left her and the children two weeks before this, canceling the insurance on her car and home. Tony, who attends church with us, owns a nice BBQ restaurant in the area of the flooding. His restaurant was spared. Tony went into the flooded neighborhoods offering free food. This woman and her children arrived that afternoon asking for a meal. As she shared her plight with Tony, a man was standing nearby and overheard. He stepped up to her and shared that he has more money than he will ever spend. His financial advisors keep urging him to invest in this or put money in that stock. He said that doesn't make sense to him, but this need does. And with that he offered his card to her and to Tony. He said he is going to buy her a new home and new car. So in the midst of the mud and misery, a Good Samaritan is present. And his story is grand, but there are so many other stories that are just as generous. We are each called to give out of what we have. Some of us can give more than others. It's not how much we give, but what we give out of what has been given to us. As you sit in your dry home, will you ponder what God is calling you to give. Maybe that's not a material thing, but a talent or gifting or maybe just a smile or a word of hope to someone who is struggling. Stay dry and keep pondering....................

If this were our usual August, I would be taking new photos of Dane's daily catches -- assuming of course that the fish were biting. There is a difference between fishing and fish catching. A phone call from our dear friends who are up in the glory of the northwoods tell us that the fishing is great, but the catching is not good - in fact in their 50 years up north, this is so far the least successful in the fish catching category.

But fishing aside, this isn't our usual August and we aren't up north. It's been on our prayer list of "hoped for" all summer. Several things have kept us from our annual rest.

Finances of course play a role. We've told each other this year we could not go. We ask and God has said "not this year". Secretly, I've continued to ask God to make a way if it is His will. Surely it's His will that I get the rest and rejunivation as I sit on my dock in the quiet of the island while I listen to the loon sing for me and the Bald Eagle soar overhead. Surely God wants me to relax in front of the campfire. Surely God, surely God, surely God....... How often do I pray with an agenda? Too often, I'm finding.

The time has come and now past for God to have changed His mind and said "Yes, you can go." So do I throw out my lower lip and pout and decide God for some crazy reason doesn't want me to rest or be revived? Do I question Him and continue to plead for a "yes"? Am I a child hoping if I whine and beg, He will change His mind? Sadly, I think some of the past few weeks looked like that to God.

We are reading Larry Crabb's The Pressure's Off. It's been a difficult read. I would have chucked the book long ago, but Dane has been finding new insight in it. Today, near the end of the book I think I'm finally getting it. God wants me to run to Him for rest and trust that in the midst of busyness, I can find peace in Him. First I must put my to-do list, my needs and my wants before Him and then TRUST that He will answer in my best interests. He isn't promising me annual trips, or financial steadiness, or warm fuzzies. If I do "A", He doesn't promise "B" - my "B" as I have it planned. He is promising me Him and He wants that to be enough for me.

It's been a tough August as I lay down my wants and consider His wants for me. I think I'm growing up. I just looked in the mirror and my lower lip isn't out. I'm determined to trust and wait upon His answers for me.

What are you pouting about today?