What I Wish People Would Know About Me ~I am nothing without Christ

"No guilt in life, no fear in death,
This is the power of Christ in me;
From life's first cry to final breath.
Jesus commands my destiny."
~ lyrics to "Christ Alone"

 

 

 

I am very moved by this song.  I think because anytime I hear about the blood of Jesus cleansing me it reminds me of why I love Him so much, why my Faith is renewed, how I've needed that cleansing blood in my life!

I wasn't always living for Christ.  I spent many years, living for myself.  I believed but I didn't want to serve.  I wanted to serve my own purposes, my own pleasures.  I often thought of my soul and if during this time I'd be lost if I died.  I believe God had a greater purpose for me even while I was serving my own purpose.  He didn't allow me to die because He had called me to live for Him at a very young age. 

I was first baptised at the young age of about 6.  I loved Sunday School, I loved the Bible, I loved Jesus.  So at a little Baptist church that I often went to by myself  (we lived across the street) I asked to be baptised and the pastor told me the significance of Baptism.  I was washing away the sinful man (which at the age of 6 I'm sure my sins were not very significant but I still had a selfish heart) and I was rising out of the water as a new child of God.  Not one that would just live for Him on Sunday, but one who would read her Bible, communicate with God through prayer and try to live a pure life that God choose for me.  Not to hinder me, but to bless me.  Not to make me a robot who mindlessly believed, followed and served out of obligation, but a true Christian who sought Him with her heart and felt His presence in the good times and the bad times.  I had a great example, of course, in my mom.  And my dad for 11 short years.  My parents were flawed, but they also were forgiven as I learned through my years I would be too. 

My faith remained strong, I thought.  Until I was going through my mid twenties.  Life was not all I expected.  I wanted excitement.  I didn't like to go to church anymore because it left me with convictions.  Convictions that were not forced upon me but that were coming from my heart (where God continued to dwell)  I tried to put out of my mind the gentle tugs from God.  I walked deeply into a lifestyle that spiraled into sin.  I made decisions that felt good at the time, they were pleasurable and I even felt justified.  I thought why shouldn't I do this, I'm an adult I've not experienced this or that, what am I missing?  I won't go into the sins I committed (I'll leave you guessing) unless you really know me then you probably were there with me watching me struggle.  This path I stayed on for 10 years. 

I went through divorce at this time and felt angry with God.  I wondered how he could take away the very thing I thought He blessed.  But He didn't take it away, we ruined it with one bad decision after another.  I still blamed God and even the church for not caring enough.  It wasn't God, it wasn't the church.  It was an evil liar who comes in the form of pleasure/temptation that made me believe God didn't love me.  Sound familiar to the serpent in the Garden of Eden? 

I met my husband now and we were two very different people. After being engaged I finally told him that I didn't want to sit at home and worry who he was with or when he'd be home from the bar with his friends.  This is not who I wanted to be married to.  I wasn't perfect of course.  But he stopped going to bars and I was happy.  We didn't live a wild lifestyle but we didn't live for any purpose than our own.  We raised our kids the best we could but they often witnessed some bad decisions. 

We often talked about what we believed about God and the Bible.  My husband had some mixed feelings because of his upbringing, which a very forced and mechanical religion played into that.  I remember sharing with him my beliefs but still felt like I couldn't live the life I once did.  I felt like I was never going to be able to restore my faith. 

We started looking for a church to try to piece together our lives and have a foundation to raise our kids on.  Once in church again, the songs stirred up feelings in me.  Especially songs like "At the Cross" or "Oh the Blood of Jesus"  So I got baptized again when my husband decided to confirm his faith.  He was really digging in.  He was studying the Bible and his faith was growing.  Mine was getting there but I sometimes felt I was just clinging to his faith instead of my own.  I was still having a hard time putting my trust in God again.  He hadn't let me down, put I still believed He had.  I believed my life should of been perfect when I was trying to be a good Christian.  And when it was less than perfect I blamed God. 

I didn't get what I so profoundly understand now.  People that truly put their trust in God withstand the trials of life and they grow through them.  God allows his children hard times so they learn and they learn to help others.  I often resented my husband because even though I called him my spiritual leader I felt he was better than me.  I had an opportunity to allow God to keep me from a painful situation but I choose to ignore Him and do what I wanted.  This is where that led if you care to read this poem I wrote. http://lojdandelion.blogspot.com/2007/07/my-spirit-struggled-i-heard-whispering.html

However today I have to say God has been working in my life and I've felt redeemed, forgiven and my faith restored beyond what it ever was.  My childlike faith has turned into a deeper faith I feel.  One that I depend on in good and bad times.  One I believe will be rewarded not in this life, but in my next.  I may still be tempted to make selfish decisions and I may mess up but I know that God is available to provide me a way out though if I just listen to Him.

 

 

 

"In Christ alone my hope is found,
He is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My Comforter, my All in All,
here in the love of Christ I stand"

~lyrics from "Christ Alone" 

Where is The White Picket Fence?

It is Father's Day and I am blessed to have a wise and spiritual leader as the father in my family.  This guy often gets "understands" things I don't get.  This I will talk about later.  But first I want to give him credit for helping me raise our three children.  Imagine being single with two small children and wondering how you are going to provide a roof over their heads, stability and happiness when their home was yanked apart by that dirty 7 letter word, "divorce".  So what if I'm happier, what about them?  So after doing it on my own for about a year I meet their now step dad.  I say to him, "How do you feel about starting your nest with two children already in it"?  He doesn't only not mind, he embraces it and loves my kids as his own.  And then we had our youngest son, who will always be branded, "the baby"  Sure there were tumultuous days.  Wow...does anyone really live a life without these?  Which brings up the title of my blog, "Where is The White Picket Fence?"  To some, this question may leaving you scratching your head.  White picket fence, what the heck is she talking about?  Oh its just this little idea I had from growing up of how families are suppose to be.  Once upon a time, my spiritually wise hubby told me (let me paraphrase in my own words, cause I can't remember his, to be honest!)  We should not look on the surface of our homes, whether families "look like" they are doing things right (who really is fooled into believing someone has a perfect home...seriously?)  But what maters is the end result.  Does it matter whether us, or our kids make mistake after mistake, if God is using that to get us to a better place spiritually?  Isn't what is on the inside of one's heart (that we eventually learn to trust God and not in ourselves, prosperity, intelligence, fun or anything else)  Isn't this what truly maters?  So to my fellow strugglers, "Trust in the Lord and lean not to your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths."  (my paraphrase from the Bible)  so tear down those white picket fences and embrace that barbed wire because it may lead to a better ending.  Happy Father's Day to all you dads doing the best you can!

How to Change Who we are?

I have this vicious cycle I am on.  I feel guilt for many things and in return I cause guilt by complaining when people don't meet my expectations.  Example...I feel guilty because I am not working and my husband is working ALOT!  I have pain, but it comes and goes, so I have good and bad days. On my good days, I think I should be working. Sometimes I have a good day turn into a bad day because I do too much.  I want to feel productive and like I'm contributing to society, but I don't feel I am.  So I feel guilty.  Then I feel angry at people, mainly my husband, when he doesn't recognize my pain.  Example...I stand at the stove and cook, my knees aching and stabbing pain in my neck but I won't stop and lie down.  I wait and expect my husband to see the pain I'm in and sympathize, offer to take over.  I do this with other's too but mostly I leave my highest expectations for my husband.  He is a great guy and always my biggest supporter.  I usually voice my complaints.  I just think I've voiced them so much that people have stopped hearing them.  Why should I complain when others have it so much worse.  There is that guilt again.   How to change who we are?  That's a tough one!

My Constants, "Love, Hope and Faith"

If you are a fan of the TV series "Lost" then you saw last weeks episode where Desmond needed to find a constant in his past life and his present life to keep from dying. His constant was his girlfriend Penny. It was quite a moving episode. This week started out pretty dreary with the weather, cloudy, cold and rainy. I went to work Monday feeling like the mouse in the wheel. I don't always want to do another day. Basically, life is pretty dull. We go to work, we work at home, we struggle to pay our bills, and we go to sleep and start over. Yes, occasionally we have something to look forward to, a vacation, a move, a tax return, a day off work with no obligations. But mostly life is a grind. But how often do we think that we'd have it better if we had a different job, more money, a different spouse (NOT ME OF COURSE), more manageable kids, a bigger house, a maid, a fitness trainer, etc... However, I did find that my "Constants" in life make it more bearable and worth living. Some of my constants are routines. Reading a devotion with Erik before school, listening to my new voicemail from Rog that he left on his way to work, coming home from work on lunch to eat and watch TV, making supper and relaxing on the couch, going to church on Sunday and taking a day off of housework. Roger is my constant. I know I can call him or talk to him about anything that frustrates me, anything that makes me laugh, anything that makes me cry, etc. His love is a constant! Then when I need to complain about Roger I call Traci! (Not very often though:) My faith is a constant, I know that even when I don't feel it I know it is still there. Hebrews 11:1 "Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." Hope is a constant. Recently we had some of our hopes crushed. The land we were given by Roger's parents to build on was not buildable. The septic was not approved because the water table was too high. We wasted about $1200 finding that out. Our bigger tax check was wasted! So we thought we had free land, we thought we had extra money to find out we had neither! But I still believe (Have hope) that there is a reason to all this. One reason could be that we are not suppose to move or we are suppose to move somewhere else beside next to Rog's parents! I have hope that something better will happen. Maybe we'll have more land but a smaller house. Maybe we'll stay where we are and get out of debt. Maybe we'll move to Tennesee! It is hard not to have control of our lives but God is in control and I must trust Him. No matter how glum it looks sometimes. Part of having hope is remembering how something that didn't seem good at the time turned out to be for our better. If we remember those times we can have hope that God is in charge and we can trust that all things will work out for the best, somehow.

I love this guy! Happy 13th anniversary!

This guy is the love of my life. I know exactly how lucky I am. I can love him intensely one minute and totally be maddened by him the next. We are both very opinionated people and we both think we are right most of the time. I wouldn't want someone who thinks just like me but on most issues we do agree. We've both changed a lot since we met, but we've grown together. I am surprised at how our values have changed over the years. I know that time, experience and mistakes have helped with that. But I also believe that "God works all things together for good to them that are called according to His purpose." Romans 8:28
Rog has supported me in every difficult time. It is true that I don't always feel in love as I do at this moment but I know that in commitment our strength lies! I can believe he will always stand beside me because he has proven it. I don't question his commitment 'cause he has proven it. I know that in good and bad he will hold my hand. I know that when I am moody, sick, ugly, or just plain crazy, he will still love me. We usually love because of how someone makes us feel about ourselves. It's really pretty selfish. When life gets busy or we forget to pay attention to each other our spouses get neglected. I don't want to neglect the best thing that has happened to me. I want to honor him with my love and respect. I want to keep earning his trust, sharing his good and bad times, growing, dreaming and living together as long as we both shall live. This Monday will be our 13th anniversary! We plan on celebrating tomorrow night by going to Indiana Beach. We had a blast on our 10th there, even though it rained. I hope we'll have our grand baby on Sat. am and Sunday and Monday Rog, me and Boog are going with Matt and Traci and kids 4-wheeling at Haspin Acres. Pictures to come! Rog got me a new camcorder to record our new grand baby. Camdyn is army crawling now, it's so cute! Life would not be the same without Rog to share it. When all the kids are gone (and they're going fast) I know we will have each other. We have dreams, we have history, we have children, we have passion, we have friendship. We agree to disagree sometimes but ultimately accept each other. No one is a perfect fit but Rog is my best fit.

Teaching our Kids!

Yesterday, I had a client and old classmate tell me that she'd just learned that her 16 year old son was sexually active. Of course her main concern was his girlfriend getting pregnant. She checked with the mother to see if the girl was on birth control. I may be in the minority but I do not endorse birth control as a solution. First, pregnancy is not my only concern for my kids. Thru experience I've come to see why God's word, the Bible discourages sex outside of marriage. The emotional hurt, unplanned pregnancy and disease being a few reasons. The world encourages sex outside of marriage because we don't want to say no to our desires...Thus we have more divorce, more abortions, more STDs and more single parent families. In our society it is very hard to tell ourselves no. Without love for ourselves, God and others we will engage in anything that feels good. I believe a lot of girls and women seek affection and attention though sex. I've heard physchologists say that when a girl doesn't feel loved or special to a father she will seek attention through other males. This makes her vulernable. There can be other strong male figures in her life to conteract this I believe, a loving grandfather, God: the father, a respectful boyfriend. How many girls find that respectful boyfriend? One who will not pressure her to have sex, then dump her later? As a teen girl I didn't have a father figure. My father passed away when I was 11. However, I had a strong relationship with God and a respectful boyfriend that didn't pressure me for sex.
Sex is a moment of pleasure but can be a lifetime of hurt if not in a secure relationship such as marriage. I believe in marriage. It's a committment. I believe that living together is "all the benefits without the committment." I lived with Roger and I regret that decision. I had went into rebellion to God because of my divorce. Recently I relized that when I felt God dissappointed me I rebelled. I use to serve God because I expected Him to bless me. Now I see, as Erik so plainly told me yesterday "We shouldn't do things because we expect a reward." He is so wise for his years!!! That is true in love for God, for our family and for our neighbors. "Don't pretend that you love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Stand on the side of good. Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honouring each other. Never be lazy in your work, but serve the Lord enthusiastically." Romans 12:9-11 "Pay all your debts, except the debt of love for others. You can never finish paying that! If you love your neighbor, you will fulfill all the requirements of God's law. For the commandments against adultery and murder and stealing and coveting-and any other commandment-are all summed up in this one commandment:"Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to anyone, so love satisfies all of God's requirements." - Romans 13:8-10 (New Living Translation)
Roger and I settled into familiarity too soon and didn't enjoy the concept of dating each other. We also moved in together during the "oh-ah" stage and things could have went to ah-oh! But thank God they didn't. Roger wanted marriage from the beginning. I was wary because of my divorce. He asked me if I'd marry him if I felt the same way in 6 months. And 12 months later, I did!
I am open in my conversation to my kids about sex and the consequences. I believe I should be more worried about their souls than anything else. I have tried to instill Godly advice. I have tried to present them with facts. Recently I learned that at least 50% of sexually active people will contact HPV in their lifes. see- http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm
The Human Papillomavirus is the new hot topic, showing up in magazines and on TV. There is a vaccination now to help protect our daughters from contacting this disease before they become sexually active. Even if she waits for her future husband, he could pass it to her if he's been sexually active.
You are not protected from HPV if you use condoms. It causes genital warts anywhere from the area around the genitalia, to the anus, to the inside of the uterus. HPV is one of the leading causes of cervical cancer in women. How scary is that?! I've told my son that when you have sex it is like you've had sex with all the people your partner has been with.
If you have no other reason, no moral conviction to wait for sex, at least the fear of contacting or spreading disease to your future spouse would caution us to not "Sample"
I am sick of Hollywood's infiltration of sex in the media. Like Phillip Morris who sells cigarettes but pretends to care about future smokers, MTV and other media platforms pretend to care about our kids while "Selling Sex"
"Kids who listen to music with sexually degrading lyrics have sex at an earlier age, reports a RAND Health study thats followed 1,400 kids, ages 12-17, for 3 years. The more exposure kids have to media with any sexual content, the more likely they are to start having sex themselves. this is especially true with regard to movies and music, reports a University of N. C. at Chapel Hill study of 1,000 seventh and eighth graders." -Good Housekeeping, February 2007
It's our call. We can let the world influence them or we teach and try to protect them. Sure they are not going to listen to everything we say but it is suprising what sticks. And when you've done everything you can to influence them know that you aren't responsible for their choices only for your influence!

Submission???

Commitment - "Through all things difficult commitment is where our strength lies."
I'm reading a book that I've found very insightful called "Confessions from a honest wife" by Sarah Zacharias Davis. It is a composition of letters from women about varying issues of marriage. There are many quotes from the book that have been perceptive. For example in regards to submission (which is a very scary word for me) it quotes Loius Anspecher:

"Marriage is that relationship between a man and a woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligations reciprocal."

As a youth I had Ephesians 5:21-33 highlighted in my Bible and beside it I wrote "God's Way" Now later in my life after some "life experiences" I cringed at that when I turned to it. What I am cringing at is an interpretation of Ephesians 5:22 where the wife is to submit unwittingly to the husband. Since I'm an "absolutist" I can not change the scripture to mean what I want it to. So for years I've rejected the idea of submission. Why the change in my thinking? Well, I could blame it on the shapings of my past. However, that is the part of "Confessions" that troubles me- blaming our pasts or others for our choices! Certainly thru my divorce I felt a naivete. So if this is indeed what caused my adversity to submission I could blame my ex and never trust a man again. But as I stated I don't believe in blaming our problems on our pasts. It is not my parents, peers or ex's fault if I chose to allow my past experience to dictate my future. We truly do the best with what we know at the time. And I've learned that I can submit (give) my heart to a man that loves me "even as Christ loved the church" Ephesians 5:25. This man will not misuse that. He will be the soft shoulder for me to lean on. I have this picture on our bedroom door of two penguins hugging. The female penguin's head is nestled under the males. This is how I feel with Roger. I feel safe, cared for, not dependent on but supported. I'm sure I am dependent on Rog for many things. I'm sure, too that he is dependent on me for many things. It truly is nice for both partners to feel equally important in a relationship. When we feel secure in our position in a relationship we don't feel as if we are giving up anything. I appreciate the strengths my male counter parts have over me. I am not afraid to "value" a man that respects me.

Love The One You're With

Recently I watched "Shadowlands" an HBO movie about the unconventional marriage of C.S. Lewis (authour of Chronicles of Narnia). He stated "God doesn't necessarily want us to be happy. He wants us to love and be loved. We think childish toys bring us all the happiness there is and our nursery is the whole wide world. Something must drive us out of the nursery to the world of others and that something is suffering." Upon the recent anniversary of 911 I would agree that suffering drove people to care about the world of others. I watched a TV reinactment about a man that was unable to escape the building because he became too winded to descend anymore stairs. One man stayed with him and died with him. I wonder if the man that had gave up had truly felt any self-worth. His wife said that she didn't believe that he knew how important he was to so many. How many people don't feel valued. C.S. Lewis said God wants us to love and be loved. I think that God does want us to be happy just not forget what is important, love. "These are three things that will endure- faith, hope, and love- and the greatest of these is love." 1 Corithaians 13:13
Not to give the story line away but C.S. Lewis did learn that we sometimes only truly value something if we are going to lose it. Roger says "You only grow thru trials and that is why God doesn't want you to stay too comfortable." I've learned to love Roger more deeply in the trials we've gone thru together. Some would argue that romantic love is fleeting but I haven't given up yet. If I think about the reasons I feel in love they were purely selfish. It was about how Rog made me feel about myself. Too often life gets in the way and we stop making each other feel as special, valued. So it's an effort to stay in love. It takes lots of communication and letting each other know our needs. I've never had a problem saying what I need. Of course even when I don't say it Roger knows when something is amiss.

Dreamers

"Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born." -Dale Turner  "Love is renewable."-me
This picture was taken on a rainy night at Indiana Beach. It was our 10th anniversary and we saw a full rainbow that evening too.
Our Dreams:To my Lobster:To have a house built in the woods.I love that we share dreams, To go white water rafting, easy white water:)I love that we laugh together,
To own a '32 Ford Highboy.I love that we try new things together,
I love the way your body fits mine when we spoon,
To stay on the ocean. DID THIS ONE- JAN 2010, RIVERIA MAYA, MEXICOI love the way you look at the sound board on Sunday mornings,
To go on a cruise.I love the way you smell.To snorkel in the ocean. DID THIS ONE-JAN 2010, RIVERIA MAYA, MEXICO (NEXT TIME WITH A LIFE VEST!)
I love the shape of your nose and the softness of you lips,To have grandkids. THIS ONE STARTED, SEPT. 27, 2006, CAMDYN TYLER! HAD A SECOND ONE, SEPT. 17, 2009, DRAVEN COAL!I love the way we sit side by side on the same couch cushion,
To build a business together. We've thought of several. Most recent a Christian bookstore/coffee house.
I love the sound of you strumming your guitar,
To jet ski. TRIED THIS ONE...FUN, BUT WOULDN'T BUY ONE!I love the way you yell at the TV during football,
To drive across route 66 on a hotrod tour.I love the way you type one key at a time,
To travel across the USA, via motor home.I love the way you hum when you laugh,
To sail.
I love the way you comfort me when I am overwhelmed,
To rob a Bank. Ok, that's mine.I love the way you love our son,
To rock climb. MAYBE NOT THIS ONE ANYMORE...TRIED A ROCK WALL AND DIDN'T LIKE!I love the way you try to please me,
To para-sail.
I love your willingness to sometimes allow me to be right,
Zipline or Traversing. DID THIS ONE ALSO JAN. 2010 AT EXPLOR, RIVERIA MAYA, MEXICO. AWESOME!
I love the way you d my kids,
I love the way you joke with my mom,
I love the way you are content,
I love that you are smart,
I love that you are a man of God,
I love that you are hard working,
These are some of our dreams, we add to them all the time.
I love the way you make me question things,
I love that even when I don't like you I know I love you and you love me! *If you watch CSI, you might know how to find a secret message in this blog:)