I’ve been playing, and I’m rambling

I decided to brighten up my blog a bit, and take the snowflakes out. We have enough snowflakes outside , I need something more springy to look at when I’m on the computer.

Things are going pretty well here. Paulie had a cold for most of the week but is feeling better today. Which is good because he has a tweens homeschool group bowling tomorrow that he didn’t want to miss. Sarah went to playgroup with her friend on Tuesday so Paulie and I could stay home. She had a great time. I’m blessed that she has friends parents who are willing to pick her up when I can’t take her. Then Paul stayed home with Paulie last night so I could go to church. I so love that man.

Church was great last night. Our pastor was talking about having faith in both the hard times and times of adversity. It’s easy to have faith in the easy times, so much harder in adversity. One thing that encouraged me was the fact that he said sometimes we have adversity for no other reason than we live in a fallen world. It’s not always the Lord teaching and/or disciplining us. I take great comfort in that. The minute I look at everything with a ‘what did I do wrong, if I fix it, this won’t happen again’ mentality I’ve put the control in my hands. And believe me, I know that thinking you have that kind of control, thinking if you just do things ‘right’ enough, adversity won’t come, those thoughts are just going to take you on a downward spiral. I’ve been there, and I’m getting out of that mentality still at this point in my life. I can’t control what happens in my life beyond my actions, so to think I can control and stop all adversity from coming into my life if I’m ‘good’ enough is heart breaking.

But I digress. Back to what my pastor was teaching last night. Anyway, he was talking about when the Lord asked His disciples if they were going to leave Him too and Peter answered, “Where would we go?” “To whom shall we go?” And the Lord impressed on my heart something so profound to me, and so humbling and sad too. At times I still think there is somewhere else I can go someone else I can go to, me. See before I completely gave my life to the Lord, and even when I was walking with Him early in my walk, I had this pride that I did ok by myself. I lived on my own, made a good wage, was quite successful in the world. And so when things started getting rough in my walk there was always this gnawing thought in the back of my head that I could ‘make it’ in the world again if I had too. I know, sad thought. But the Lord has been showing me over the past few years that though I gave my heart to Him, I never truly gave my whole life to Him. I still lived my life the way I did when I wasn’t with Him (just ‘cleaner’, if that makes sense). I didn’t pray for guidance (unless I was stuck), I didn’t minister or do anything for the Lord that would be to ‘taxing’ and I certainly didn’t do anything that could possibly make my life uncomfortable. Truly, except for cleaner language and going to church all the time, I don’t know that there was any change in me. I never saw Him as my whole life, just a way to get to heaven.

Yes, like I said sad, I know. Well, the Lord has been working with me on those thoughts for years. Because I never knew it was wrong. I thought all Christians were like that. And when I saw one that prayed about everything, talked about the Lord all the time and what the Lord was showing them, I just thought they were young Christians excited for the Lord and would simmer down soon. It never clicked that I was the one that was wrong, that I was so completely lukewarm and that I looked just like the world in my walk. So, like a onion with layers, the Lord has slowly been showing me different things and areas in my life that I have never completely given to Him. And the areas I was still walking in my old ways. Some of the things He’s shown me have been ‘easy’ some, well very hard. And I consider last night one of the harder ones. Me, thinking I had somewhere else to go someone else to go to? Yep, that’s prideful me. Thinking I could make it without Him. See I still measured ‘making it’ by the world’s standards too, not the Lords. I was still measuring making it by if I could be successful and take care of myself in this world. I never measured it against the Lord’s standards. I never allowed myself to see how empty my life was back in the world. How lost I was, how much into sin I was. I still saw myself as a good girl, who had went astray in a few areas. But against the Lord’s standards, we have all sinned, I wasn’t a good girl (regardless of what I did or didn’t do). But the questions I need to ask myself aren’t the questions of the world or the world’s standards. They are the standards of the Lord, His Son and His Word.

So I still have these questions gnawing at me, do I think there is somewhere else I can go someone else I can go to (me) besides the Lord? Have I sold myself out completely to Him, or do I still hold things back? Do I still look like the world, only ‘cleaner’, or do I look like a person who has completely sold out and given all I have to the Lord? Am I a person who has truly realized there is no where else to go besides the Lord?

Ok, now to explain all those crossed out lines from above. Even as I was typing this entry, I was looking up the verse, which happens to be John 6:68, but for the longest time I couldn’t find it. I saved this entry as a draft, and searched for about a half hour, practically in tears, thinking I really didn’t know my bible. Finally I just started going through the bible glancing over all the ‘red’ in my bible trying to find it (you know all of Jesus’ words). I finally found it in John and realized why I couldn’t find it. I was thinking it said, ‘where else would we go’, not ‘to whom shall we go’. And that wording made such a difference (I’ve since gone back in this entry and changed all the where’s to whom, that’s the lines being crossed out). See, it makes an even bigger impact on my life. Because the Lord has shown me how I truly was thinking I could go to myself again and make it without Him if I ‘had’ too. I truly thought I had the answers to life, not Him. I thought I was smart enough without Him to make it on my own. Wow, even more humbling than before for me.

Save