I almost am not posting this. Personal and raw and yet isn't that the point. Writing what you can't say or live. Or writing it so you can start to LIVE IT.....
Yesterday seeing myself as to really label them.... racist and homophobic and being so hurt by that, so surprised and hurt...trying to deny it in myself...perhaps it was You.... Then this morning Mark 8: 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37 Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."
This dying to self is harder than you even realize, it means seeing all that you are, hating it and yet embracing Your forgiveness....seeing it all, the hypocrisy, the selfishness, the constant self protection, self immersion, the racism, the ......all of it. And all the while wanting to hide or say... 'But he', 'but she', 'look at that person she' or he, 'don't we all'... and yet you are showing me mine and I HAVE to look at it....it hurts so bad Father and yet to stop isn't an option. This wanting others in it with me. Ain't gonna happen is it and that I continue to try is hindering my journey. IT is like Larry says and has to be between You and me no matter how crazy I feel. Now it's not to live in the crazy but in the peace of it.
Living in, Your knowing me and loving me anyway.
Living in, the I will never be able to tell anyone what it feels like.
Living in, the feeling of never quite fitting in and yet living in the comfort of Your arms and helping others to get there.
Living in the trusting that in the dying to myself I won't be DEAD but alive in Christ....
It doesn't make sense and yet it makes perfect sense.
The me always being about ME has to die......
The me wanting what I want has to die.....
The Me wanting to be understood has to die....
The Me who envies, and compares and judges everything has to die....
The Me wanting anything other than what YOU want has to die.
And the pain of it and wanting to die because of it has to die and I have to LIVE in Christ.....alone......
And then this just to confirm....VERSE: Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.-- Psalm 73:25-26
THOUGHT: What can truly fulfill and sustain us? Maybe the best way to answer that question is by asking another: What can we keep when our bodies are placed silently in their graves at death? Only our relationship with God and his people lasts beyond the grave. If he is what lasts, then how can we displace him for anything that doesn't?
PRAYER:Mighty Yahweh, Strength of Israel, Keeper of the Covenant and Fulfillment Maker of every prophecy, you are my hope, my strength and my future. I live this day in wide open amazement that the Keeper of the Universe knows my name, hears my voice, and cares for me. Thank you for being my past, my present, and my future, the Great I Am. Through my Savior I pray. Amen. (I guess what I say is THANK YOU and I DO or want to)
Just realizing today TODAY is Ash Wednesday......remember it for a reason....??? a year of getting to know You as I said in January.....40 days of worship and praise as I QUIT smoking and desire to lose weight??? Sitting on the stoop this morning talking to YOU about praying instead of smoking...praising You instead of eating and smoking??? What in the world would it look like, there is nothing that I know anything about anymore so try it......living a life of WORSHIP or how about 40 days of Worship and PRAISE....???
6 comments:
I love reading your posts, so soul searching! I have to come back and read this one and the last one when I have more time to focus on it.
Such awesome pictures, Becky.
God loves you so and has gifted you amazingly!
Yes it is:-) And thanks.
Love the art.
Congrats on the self discipline!! I'm wrestling quite a bit with quitting.
I have been trying to figure out how to comment but will just say "Amen" for now. Another powerful post.
It's important for me to remember, in the middle of some painful death scene, that God isn't making me hurt because he's sitting zazen on top of a pillar, aloof and enjoying my pain. No, if you want to get out of the desert we've made of life, there's some heat and dryness to endure.
We used to drive from the middle of Kansas to the mountains of Colorado every summer. The sun would come up about the time we hit Hays, and the day would get hot, and hotter. We'd get sticky and cranky. And then the mountains would start to form in the distance and I longed to be up there where it was cool and the rain's thunder rang off the cliffs.
God has no delight in our pain. He delights in our following him out of that desert. Dying in the desert to live in the mountains...
I appreciate your posts, your honesty and courage to put it right out there, warts and everything. You help me bust through the "preacher" bubble that I tend to surround myself in. It is a mask and a fortress. But it keeps the flames of baptism away, and that is not what I need. What I need is your honesty and your provocative thoughts. God bless you, and thank you for being there.
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