Love songs...

I have been hanging off of a ladder painting for 2 days. One of the benefits of being married to a contractor. Spring painting. Nothing like a little sunburn and paint in your hair to make you feel alive. Well, that's what it does for me.

The thing about painting is that you spend a lot of time in your own thoughts. There were times that I could hear the radio but most of the time I couldn't. Finally today I put my iPod on to get me through some high work (which I hate). It seems that God knows what to load on my iPod, I purchased the new mp3 album Revelation by Third Day to make a CD for my Mom for Mother's Day. I like them, but they aren't really my style... but they are one of her favorites. So I am painting a long today and it's just like God grabbed me gently by my chin and looked me in the face as this song played in my ears.

This has just been a season of Jesus getting into my hard heart. Of not flailing, not striving for my own way. It has been excrutiating. I have begun to allow Him in the deep places of hurt. Places that you forget about until He puts His finger on a memory, a smell, something that seems so insignificant takes you back to a place that meets you with pain. All of my worst fears, all of those memories that have defined me but that I have shut out and not taken to the Cross. I have lived my whole life in fear that God's grace wasn't enough for me. For everyone else, but not me. That my salvation, is conditional, on performance.

I have spent years working on degrees in theology so that I would "feel" qualified. I have read so many Christian Inspiration books that they all sound the same. I have danced at the altar, I have been baptised twice, I have been in all of the "right" small groups. I have worn myself out trying to please man, and trying to earn a place. With this move to the farm, it's like God is screaming at me... you are already in your place. Not that wife and mother is all that I am. I am so much more than just labels of responsibility. But at the same time I don't need anything more. I don't have to be the Homeschool President, the Scoutmaster, make all of the costumes, and attend church every time the doors are open so that I have all of these qualifications to list on my Application for Salvation.

I do believe that we walk out our Salvation. I do believe that God calls us to a process of sanctification. Holiness, seperate behaviors... not alienation from all things evil. Not a list of do's and don'ts. But a heart that cries out to Him... a heart that desires to know Him, for the sake of loving Him. A heart that knows fear of the Lord, honor, obedience to His Word. Loving ourselves enough to be capable of loving others the way that we love ourselves. Allowing God's love to flow in and through us, a cleansing stream. His Word, the two edged sword... seperated the bone from the marrow. What is skeletal versus what is the source of the skeleton.

I kept thinking that I miss God over the last few months as we have searched for a new church home. If only I could find a good worship event, if only the Pastor would call, if only someone would lay hands and pray on us. What I have missed is an emotion. God hasn't left me, He has had His hand on the small of my back guiding me and whispering in my ear every step of the way. The pain, He saw, the tears, He caught, the sobs, He heard. The accusations, He held at bay, the enemy, this far and no farther. God has implanted a faith, a hope so deep in my heart. It makes no sense. I can't explain it. Others ask where it comes from and I can say it's only through Him... Christ Jesus that I am even alive. I know the places He has walked with me, I know the times that He could foresee the damage, and yet, allowed it for my growth. He did it with Abraham, Job, Paul... David.

It is because of my love of the Father and the Christ, that I am able to love my husband, despite his humanness. My children through the tough days of adolecence. My parents through years of rebellion, and misunderstanding. My own self, despite the weight, the past, the sin, the shame... the things I have done to cover for the real me, that no one would love. I have begun to allow Him to love her, and as He does, I am able to show her to Ande, my children, my family... my friends. I am not who I have portrayed. I am a weak woman, that needs her Father, her Savior and her Comforter... everyday. I am done pretending to be strong, I am going to allow myself to cry, I am going to allow myself to laugh. I am going to allow myself to be me. I am going to be true to the Creator and care a lot less about what creation thinks.

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”- Proverbs 31:30