Enough for God

For the last 48 hours God has been moving around and shaking some things up in my heart. It's messing me up guys, messing me up.
Ben talked on Sunday about love and fear. I'd give some link love but it's not being made available online for download, they want to be sure it's heard the way it was intended. Wholly and complete and out of love. He talked about fear and named 3 things that are pretty common fears:
People- as in the fear of disappointing people, sort of like wanting to please people and have everyone like you. I'm still processing that one, and the surprising depths my fear of disappointing people runs.
Money- having it, not having it, missing out on something because you're saving it and more.
Death- pretty self explanatory, but he talked about the assurance that faith in Jesus brings in the face of death or about to be death
I'm hoping to come back and revisit each one, we'll see if I remember and actually post anything.

But this is one of the few things that God has been kicking my ass over this weekend. I almost exclusively apply characteristics of people I know to God. I mean we all do it, it's what helps us wrap our teeny brains around the massivisity (what?) that is God.
During the money section Ben talked about obedience in 3 areas with money. When you have money God says we should do 3 things with it. Give some to God, save some, and spend the rest within your means. He said that disobedience in 1 of those 3 areas can lead to all sorts of issues with money. But I don't want to delve to deeply into that right now. The point is, I am rampantly disobedient in one of those areas. Oh, I give to God regularly and when the option comes up for me not to I put my foot down and say no, that part of the budget stays. I also live within my means (mostly and you'll see why I say mostly in a second). I have ZERO credit cards. I have no note on my car, I paid for it in cash. I have my student loans and my mortgage, that's it. (sorry a girls got to brag sometimes). But I do not save. At all. If there is a penny to be spent by golly I'm going to find something I just have to have, or something I just have to buy someone else, or someplace I just have to drive so I need that money for extra gas. I spend it all. Well, that doesn't bode well for the occasional rainy day emergency, especially when you own a house.
Ben called us to repent to God for the area(s) that we're disobedient in. So I started right in on it, because if nothing else I follow direction fairly well.
But I never really stopped. I've been grovelling about not saving, which led to grovelling about my past sin and disobedience, which led to me spending quite a bit of time dredging my past for all the mistakes I'd made long before I ever believed God even existed. I eviscerated myself at the foot of the cross, and I thought, rightfully so.
Because when you have to apologize to another person for wronging them, one apology just isn't going to cut it. They have to really know that you're sorry, you have to prove to them just how sorry you are and maybe then they will consider thinking about accepting your apology. But they'll also bring it up again, and they won't forget, and sometimes they'll flat out refuse your apology, especially if it's something you're constantly screwing up on.
The last one especially sucks the air out of me.
Because left to my own devices I much prefer cruelty and snarkiness as a companion rather than grace and patience. Because if I know someones weakness it makes me feel powerful to exploit that weakness. I have exploited many a weakness for years. In the last almost 6 years since I began following Jesus I still slip up. I still say cruel and awful things. I still mock someone into a puddle on the floor. But I apologize, I repent to them, and I repent to God, but I just keep doing it.
Two Christmases ago I did it again. I was in rare form. My cranky pants were on and they were yanked up to my chin. When the battle was over and the other party had retreated I went and I apologized, I didn't even try to explain as usual, I just said, I'm sorry, I know better and I will try to do better. This person that I love and admire looked at me so coolly and said, "I'd like to believe you but your apology is just not good enough"

Sometimes I think my apologies to God are just not good enough, and in a sense they're not really. I have a hard time believing that he truly forgives and keeps no record of wrongs. I feel this unassuaged guilt at times for things that I've done, things I still feel so strongly that I want to do. I feel like if only I were sorry enough God would take these feelings, these thoughts, these desires away.
But that's not really how he operates. I know it, but I sure don't get it deep down. You ask, he forgives, he keeps no record of wrong. That's just so much more divine than I can really grasp most of the time.

I sort of feel the same way about prayer. Like if I was a really good believer I would be praying for hours and hours. I would be like the people whose stories I read that spend the first 4 hours of their day on their face during their quiet time and Lord help me I have no idea what they're saying, because I seem to have this mucked up notion that in order to pray you have to talk all the time. I'm sure you haven't noticed, but I tend to ramble. I don't want to ramble to Jesus, I often think he has more important things to do!
Again, that is just not true. My teeny human brain can not comprehend what God can do, and that's because he can do anything. Even be everywhere all the time.
I think half of the battle for me is to just be still before God. I'm just rarely still. I try to multi task my prayer in while I'm driving, while I'm catching up on google reader, while I'm showering, while I'm cooking. That's all well and good, and those prayers are perfectly valid, but they are all one-sided. It's all me coming at God and requesting things from him and occasionally thanking him and telling him I love him. Rarely is it me, asking him to come and speak to me and then shutting up.

Is it because I say yes to much? Yes (pun intended). Not all of it is that, but that is a good portion of it. So I'm going to try to say no more. I'm going to try to do a few things well, have a healthy balance of relational time, and the rest, I'm just going to try to be still. To sit, to read my bible more, to just listen for God talking. Because if the last 48 hours are any indication he has a lot to say and I just have been screaming to loud to hear him.

We're not good enough for God, but that's ok, because we're not God. Jesus bridges that gap, Jesus intercedes with our Father and he is good enough. What a relief, now maybe I can not only believe that God forgives me, maybe I can forgive myself.

Like a punch to the chest: mild hysteria to follow

This picture is leaving me breathless and broken hearted this morning. I can't stop crying.
Could this be photo shopped for heart string effect? Sure. When I look at the picture I wonder why the person stopped to take a picture instead of immediately scooping up this child into their arms.
But photos are powerful whether they're staged or not. They change, shape, and intensify your perspective on things.
Feeling your heart break over such need is rough when you're sitting in a warm, cushy cubicle with plenty of fresh and clean running water. Seeing such terrible hunger is like a knife to my ever expanding gut.
What do you do when there's so much to do, where do you start and how do you help when you feel like you're not helping enough?
Why? How?

God I cling to the fact that you are God, that you are sovereign and good, that you can be trusted, that your heart is bigger and more broken over the damage in the world then mine could ever be. Father I don't understand the why and the how but I choose to trust in you and your ways.
Use me, use us, catalyze and drive us to discontent with the way it is and show us the way it should be.
Amen

Self Loathing and Holding Grudges

I'm working my way through a Beth Moore bible study on the Psalms of Ascent in a church life group. It's very good, and it's becoming very difficult for me to resist the change that God is trying to make in my heart.
Beth Moore said in one of her videos that self-loathing is a form of pride as well, because it's still all about you. As hard as I try I can't get that thought out of my head.
I'm a grade A self loather. I feel pretty douchy almost all the time, but I've gotten really adept at hiding it. With the exception of a comment here, a self deprecating shrug there and you would never know the onslaught of criticism and nastiness that my brain unleashes inside my head.
Since I started leading outreach, it's only gotten worse. But I was sort of expecting that. When I was praying about leading I was pretty sure I was also about to enter into a season of some serious growth and the inevitable pain that comes with growth (at least with me, does that happen to any of you?). But I wasn't really prepared for how ugly I would be to myself.

I was talking to Diane last night while we were waiting for the Olive Cheese Bread to bake and telling her about the last year. God has worked harder in me in the last year than I've ever allowed him to do before. It's quite frankly terrifying. The subject of this weeks part of the study was about forgiveness and how the Lord keeps no record of wrongs, and how if he did, no one could stand under that guilt.

I come from a long line of grudge holders. My mom's mom stayed mad at her step-mom for 70 years. SEVENTY.YEARS. That's a hell of a grudge. It's all about keeping a tally of who did you wrong when and how severely.
When I was 2 or 3 my Uncle Johnny died. Uncle Johnny would always be sleeping on my grandparents sofa, and when I would arrive I would go and climb up on his stomach, lightly pat his face and say, "Wake up Uncle Johnny, I'm here, it's time to play with me" When he died my parents told me he had fallen asleep forever (so I've been told, I don't actually remember any of this). So at his funeral, I saw him "sleeping" in a box. I climbed up on this convenient step stool (one of those Catholic kneely things) and climbed onto his chest in his sleeping box. I began to pat his face and tell him, "Wake up Uncle Johnny, I'm here, it's time to play with me" When I was 16, my grandmother related that story to me with tears in her eyes, and then said, "You were such a terrible awful spoiled brat and you should know that I will never forgive you for what you did to me at Johnny's funeral"
So if I'm not attentive, my memory can play tricks on me and lead me to believe that I deserve to hold a grudge. I deserve to nurse those wounds and keep them active and seeping.
But that is a lie. It is a lie of an enemy that wants me to be so distracted by wounds I don't allow to heal that I forget to worship and serve a God that is so much bigger then grudges and offenses.

But the longest list, the deepest wounds, the hardest things for me to forgive are the wounds I inflict on myself.
Stupid, ugly, fat, douchy, why would you say that, what were you thinking, of course you weren't invited, you're never going to make it, that 72 pounds of chocolate you just ate will probably not make you gain any weight, don't let anyone take your picture you'll break the camera, don't draw attention to yourself (you can pretend it's humility but it's just because you're not worthy of peoples attention and affection)....
On and on the list grows, the ugly hateful things that I say to myself. The self loathing I nurture and coddle as it grows and grows.

That my friends, as Beth Moore pointed out, is pride. Sinful pride. Who am I to think that it is all about me? Who am I to think so much about myself that I wound myself paralyzed and unable, uninspired, unmotivated to serve the God that freed me, that saved me, that sent his Son to die for me (me, me, me, me, me!)
I am not a confident person. I am more confident with those of you that I have known, those of you that I trust to show my weakness to (and those of you that are strangers on the internet). I am confident on behalf of other people, but I am not confident in the woman that God created me to be, I am not confident that I won't mess it up, I am not confident that my big mouth and prideful intentions won't get in the way of shining God's light in the world.

I'm right, in a way, to not be confident in those things. Because I am broken and flawed. But God isn't. My self-loathing, my almost constant focus on what I'm doing wrong takes away the focus from a truth I seem to have been missing all along.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter that I'm broken, flawed, and downright falling apart some days. Because God isn't. He's like, God. God has a history of working in broken and damaged people. He has a reputation for taking the ugly and making something beautiful out of it.
What I haven't been able to grasp, or to even see is, that God doesn't see that terrible awful spoiled brat that my grandmother decreed that I was. God doesn't say that he will never ever forgive you. God doesn't hold grudges.
God forgives and he keeps no records of wrong. God makes beauty out of pain, joy out of sorrow, and light out of darkness.

Out of the depths I call to You, LORD!
Lord, listen to my voice;
let Your ears be attentive to my
cry for help.
LORD, if You considered sins, Lord, who
could stand?
But with You there is forgiveness, so that
You may be revered.
I wait for the LORD; I wait, and put my hope
in His word

Awesome Weekend: boy am I tired

I threw a housewarming party this weekend. People came! People laughed! At least 4 people said it was the most fun they've had in a long time! I was loud and obnoxious at a Mexican restaurant! I'm pretty sure it was the wine though...

I was still busting ass to get things ready at 2, thank goodness Fred and Claire showed up early to help me run around like a chicken with my head cut off. People streamed in, (they brought gifts!) and I took them on the tour, they ooh and ahhh'd in just the right places. Jake and Cody came in from Cleveland which was so awesome, I don't get to see them nearly enough!
After a lot of people had straggled out I saw a car pull up. I wandered to the living room window, thinking..."that looks a lot like Pete's car, but it's obviously not Pete since he's in Cleveland" As I peer our the door I realize, IT IS PETE!

Holy crap! He totally drove down and surprised me, and I had no idea! So we sat around, drank more wine and then my tum said, "Bethany you have to eat, there's a lot of wine in your tum and it's starting to get floopy" So we head out to Acapulco and I mooched off of the big ass margaritas Pete and Heather couldn't finish (my plan was flawless!) We all laughed until we cried when Alaina saw a waiter that looked like a lesbian she used to know, and I subtly tried to point him out to Jeff (and by subtle I mean shouting Jeff and jerking my head around like a fish out of water) We paid the bill and went back to my beautiful home to shoot the breeze and see if we could successfully eradicate my house of wine and summer sausage. We did a pretty good job, although I think I'm going to go get a glass of wine now with all this talk.
So here are some updated pics of my house, furnished with stuff hanging on the walls.

This is the wall just inside the front door. You'll see the lovely shadow boxes that Sharen and I hung about 10pm Friday night, and the sofa table with 2 lamps is in the middle. I bought all 3 pieces for $40 at Lowes the day after Thanksgiving, huzzah!

This is the wall opposite the sofa table. You can see my lovely Charlie Brown Christmas tree and the paintings and mirror hung on the wall. My friend Mandy painted the pictures for me and dad made the stain glass mirror. The black triangle at the bottom is Gertrude's ear, she's a camera hog.
Speaking of camera hogs...here she is again. She likes being on camera, but refuses to look AT the camera, which isn't really helpful. This is a table my dad's dad made my gma, it used to be her nightstand for the longest time. The nativity on the bottom is one mom and dad bought her in 1990 from One World Shoppe. I can't decide it if looks to awkward there or not, but I like seeing the stuff being used and out so I'm keeping it for awhile.

Here's the bookcase I couldn't decide about earlier. It actually looks so much better with all the books on it. I also added a few trinkets here or there to make it look a little cozier. As Jake remembered the blue sign 1st shelf on the left is a "Shoplifters will be Prosecuted" that I borrowed from Cedar Point. I fully intend on returning it, I just haven't had it with me when I dropped by recently. I really like having the lamp in the corner, reduces the need for overhead lights which makes it feel softer and more homey.

Here's the top of the bookcase. Sharen let me borrow a lace table runner of gma's for the top. I think it helps give the case a more finished look. I also threw some old books (with cloth covers) up on the top and 2 of Bob's old bibles up there to help make the top less plain. In case you needed to know, the snow man has stitching on the other side that reads, "I love you SNOW much" I know, that's almost to cute to bear!

So that's my house. It was a fun party and I wish so many of you could have been there. By so many of you I of course mean the 4 people I know that read this and weren't there. I hope you had a great weekend, I'm going to have a glass of Pinot!

Hold on

I heard today, about the 3rd person in 3 weeks that has committed suicide.  None of them were people that I know, but it's just so sad.  I also heard today about a friend of mine who I care about that had been having chest pains.  They went into the hospital Monday and are still there, having had quintuple bypass surgery today.  

There is just so much damage and brokenness in this world.  Today I just had to keep stepping back and reminding myself that God is good, that God is good.

It's times like these that make me so thankful for the reasons I never actually killed myself. Seeing the back end, the survivor stories I realize just how terrible it would have been had I gone through with the fantastical ideas I had.

Even when we can't see him, even when we sure that he isn't there, even when we don't believe in him or even when we hate him God is there and he is good.  It is the world that is evil, broken, damaged, and out of control.  I pray for those left behind and for those in hospitals alone tonight, and for those sleeping alone because their husband is in the hospital.  I pray that God is known through all of these circumstances because God is good.  God is enough.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases his mercies never come to an end, they are new every morning: great is your faithfulness.  "The Lord is my portion", says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him"

Lamentations 3:22-24

But you, O Lord, are a shield about me, my glory, and the lifter of my head.  I cried aloud to the Lord, and he answered me from his holy hill.  I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the Lord sustained me. 

Psalm 3:3-5

Very Productive

I've been uber productive lately and I'm getting really excited about the way my house is coming together. Over Thanksgiving I went to Mom and Dad's in BG and raided their house and UJ's storage unit. I also bought a few things at Goodwill. (A sweet barrel back chair which I love)

Then the day after Thanksgiving mom, Sharen and I got up and went to Lowe's by 6am to buy a sofa table and 2 buffet lamps that were on sale for $50 total for all three pieces. Plus I checked out behind mom and ended up getting a $10 off coupon, so it was $40!

After much ass kicking on the Wii and eating my weight in turkey and stuffing I drove back down 75 to Cincinnati.

After working Saturday and Washington Project Sunday I came home and took a 2 1/2 hour nap. Not so productive on the surface, but it's really helped me a lot the last few days, I didn't exactly sleep my life away up in BG.

Sunday I washed, sanded and spackled the living room wall that still needed painting and carried in all the aforementioned furniture from my garage. I also did a ton of laundry and tried not to cry from exhaustion and party planning OCD.

Monday I worked. When I got home about 6pm I promptly set out to paint the living room wall before I got to tired again. So I painted that wall, and also put another coat on the trim in the hall. I cleaned up all my painting supplies and put together the sofa table and lamps and rearranged some furniture to try to make it fit a little better. Here is my end result

Immediately to the right of the brown rocker is where the front door opens to. I just can't figure out what to do with those pesky cords. I was thinking I could put something under there to cover them, but what if the house catches fire?! Maybe I'll use some twist ties and clean them up a little.... What's that sitting in between the lamps you say? That would be, my very first Christmas decoration!

I also placed the reddish bookcase by the stairs to the garage entrance. I can't decide if it's to awkward there or not. Tonight I'm going to try to put a white cloth on top to see if it looks more finished from the back that will help. See the front and back below and let me know what you think:

Here's the front, it's a three shelf bookcase and if you notice the light coming through the cracks in the back it's very rustic and unfinished looking

Here's the back view from the basement stairs. The white cloth will be to clean up this view of it.





I really enjoy having the light there though. It really warms up the rooms without having the glare of the overhead light.
Tonight Sharen is coming over and we're going to unpack and organize some more, maybe put up the Christmas tree. I have so much to do before Saturday, but I'm feeling so much better now that the wall is painted and sofa table put up!

Hypocrisy

Hypocrisy:
1: a pretense of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
2: a pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

I had to come home and look up hypocrisy the other night to see if my picture was next to it. (It wasn't....yet)
I worked at the bookstore Friday night, and while I enjoy 98% of the people that I speak to at the store there is that pesky 2%. Last night driving home I was just thinking about what a hypocrite this woman was, how she was just so mean, snarky, condemning and worst of all, that she fell into this ridiculous sect of Christianity that truly believed the only 2 issues God truly cares about is homosexuality and abortion. Oh I was switching my bracelet back and forth and back and forth on the drive home last night. But I was just so taken aback by the force with which this woman came at me.
She was upset because she didn't get the coupons to the store. She literally stepped back from the counter and started preaching to the few remaining guests in the store (seeing as we had closed 10 minutes earlier) about how if this store wasn't going to appreciate her money then she was going to *insert competing chain store name here*. Her money was just as good as anyone elses money and we darn better well recognize that.
Considering it was after 9pm on a Friday there was honestly very little that I could do. So I apologized, tell the woman that there isn't anything I can do tonight, but that I will take her information and have the manager call on Monday. "SEE! SEE! THIS IS WHAT I MEAN!" she shouts in my face. "They don't care, they just want me to stop bothering them! This is why if I don't get some coupons soon I'm no longer going to shop here!" I decide to just ignore her, so I tell her the total is $50.03. "I mean this is what I"m talking about! I never spend any less then $50 and you act like my money isn't good enough"
Ok, my blood was pumping I was so annoyed and pissed at this woman. I hypocritically think, way to show the freakin love of Jesus lady.
She and her entourage were getting ready to leave and she was still passive aggressively muttering about how shady it was that we were intentionally withholding coupons from her when she spotted them, the cards that would save all the unborn children in the US and world that were being aborted.
After I checked out the "last" customer (the one that caught the door as I was letting someone out after we were closed and she walked in) this deeply offended woman walked back up to the counter shaking and almost in tears. "Have you seen these cards? They're beautiful. Don't you think so?" Yes, I replied halfheartedly, I just wanted this woman to leave before I started asking her if she had read something about kindness in that bible of hers. (as I switched my bracelet while standing there). "I just, they're just, it's just" she stammered. I could feel tears pricking at my eyes, convicted of my inward seething towards this woman, she was so moved.
"I mean, it's nothing against any one person, but I just am so scared for the future of this country because of the party that's been elected into the White House. All those babies, they're just all going to be murdered now. But these cards, they're just perfect, they're perfect to show people that they shouldn't kill babies."

Ugh.

I mean, please don't misunderstand me. I am not now and never will I really share with you my thoughts and feelings on abortion because frankly I do not have the energy to get into it. I also won't really share my feelings on the whole election drama that's been unfolding or who I ended up voting for. Because at best, my patriotic position is apathetic, at worst it's outright ungrateful and hateful. But let me tell you this:

Just because I work in a christian retail store, just because I smile and am patient and kind does not mean that I agree with you on the best way to approach broken and damaged people, broken and damaged people being all of us of course. Just because I pull the purple shirt over my head and remain silent when you tell me that God is somehow paralyzed because a *gasp* democrat has been elected president does not mean that I agree.
GOD.IS.GOD.
He can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants. Because he's God. I thank God that he is God and not any of us, and certainly not I. Because the grace that he extends is so much deeper and wider then the grace I have been able to muster up to date for this woman, and certainly more grace than this woman was able to muster up for me.
I don't know much, but I know that Jesus wasn't a white middle class republican. I know that he forgave irrationally and completely. I know that instead of telling a woman that had an abortion what a ridiculous mistake she made and how guilty she was of murder he would have sat with her and told her about the redemptive and everlasting love of a God that pursued her. I know that it's true that God cares for people that have abortions, he cares for the babies that are aborted, he cares for those who are gay. But I know that God is so much bigger then the pigeonhole that we try to force him into with our rhetoric and hate speech. God loves the poor, the hungry, the naked, the forgotten, the widows, the orphans.
God.Loves.

God loves. So those of us that love him, that preach his name, shouldn't we love too? I get that love doesn't mean always getting along, I know it means conflict and standing firm in our beliefs. But I will say again, telling someone they are a disgusting sinner does not woo them into the arms of Jesus. Should we even be focusing on them and their brokenness anyway? Shouldn't the focus be, shouldn't what we tell them be about this redemptive, powerful, loving God that pursues us, that writes us love letters on the lips of kindness, generosity, and grace? Shouldn't we tell them about the God that loves us so much he sent his son (Jesus) to die for us, so that we might one day live?
I was graceful and kind to this woman at the store, but in my car the bracelet was flying between wrists as I unleashed my sinful nature, my ugliness, and my hypocrisy.