Lion and Lambs

Another year older, another year merrier! This is the first time in years that I spent Christmas away from my immediate familly. I can’t recall ever spending it without my boys. And it was still a good day, blessed by the Baby that came so that we would not have to suffer forever; the Baby that came so one day the lion will lay down with the lamb. Which reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. ~Charles Dickens

This year I spent Christmas with my SO and his family. So nothing unexpected and possibly ugly would happen, I drugged myself well. I am so thankful to the medical field, that that is available to me, and even more blessed that God allowed it to work.

My baby girl, Tootsie, was with me but one of the other family members has three dogs and one of them is an alpha female like Tootsie. Bran Dee absolutely was not happy about another dog invading her territory. When she growled at Tootsie, Tootsie thought she was playing so she would let out this cute little bark and jump at Bran Dee and Bran Dee, not intending to play would snap at her and the tussle would begin. Tootsie also kept climbing on my SO’s bad knee, so I decided Tootsie needed to go visit her sister and her other mother.

At the last minute this morning, one of the families canceled and they were responsible for the vegetable tray. The tray was all we had planned for vegetables with the meal. Since I was going out already, I got designated to find an open grocery store to get some kind of vegeys. Yay Safeway! Though far, they were opened, and packed full of people!! I got about six phone calls on the way with more things people wanted. I got the last vegetable tray, the second to the last bag of marshmallows for the sweet potatoes, forget tortilla chips, and no sugar free candy!! Thankfully they had what I needed because they got wiped out at the table.

Then it was time for presents, more food, and then the annual Christmas tradition, “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation!” Though I wish they would do a version without the vulgar language, the movie is hilarious, especially when the cat gets fried under the Christmas tree.

Everyone went home after the movie, MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT!! (oops, wrong movie, but the sentiment stands!)

The cross abandonded, the tomb empty. Hope for despair, Revelation for confusion, Peace for fear.

Life by death.

He is Risen!! Hallelujah!! He is Risen!!

The group, Tree63, wrote anamazing song with a metaphor that I repeat often to get through my days. Since Good Friday is used as the metaphor for the darkness in this world, what better time to share it with you? Here is part of it, the full lyrics can be found at Jesus Freak Hideout. I thank them for sharing!

Someone kneels in the dark somewhere
And darkness is already crumbling
It’s Friday, but Sunday comes

Sunday – Hallelujah – it’s not so far, it’s not so far away
Sunday – Hallelujah – it’s not so far, it’s not so far away

Broken promises, weary hearts
But one promise remains:
Crucified, he will come again
It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming
It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming

It’s Friday, but Sunday is coming!!

Psalm 142, verse 3a, “When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn.”

Enough said. Like a shampoo bottle, read, then repeat!

In the recent past, as I have been feeling more and more like I am going crazy, I believe God has been trying to comfort me by showing me that I am not alone. He has given me the repeated message that the things I feel are very universal amongst chronic pain sufferers. It is always so encouraging and uplifting to know that I am not so strange, that maybe I am not sinking like I thought I was. I love how He cares for us In our suffering. I love that I am important enough to Him that He will lead me to the things I need to see to be able to continue on.

Today’s blog post by Paula Kamen once again shares the experience of a pain patient who has been to the edge. Paula explains how Hazel has to “disconnect” in order to function in the world. I was talking to my new counselor about that only yesterday, asking her if it was normal or even healthy. Paula writes:

Hazel Reese didn’t realize she was suicidal until the day she was filling out the intake form at her first appointment at Chicago’s Diamond Headache Clinic in 1982. That was when she read the question asking if she had ever tried to take her own life.

She then remembered that just recently, “I purposely had walked in front of a bus one day down at Washington and Wells. … But I never had the thought consciously of doing something to myself, like cut my wrists or something like that. I never had those kinds of thoughts,” recalled the 63-year old, in an interview over herbal tea and her homemade bran muffins at her North Side home, while a blizzard raged outside.

This mental disconnection makes sense because, like so many people with chronic pain who have to keep a full-time job, it was Hazel’s main way of coping. For her 24 years at the phone company, she put all of her energy every day into just getting through work “like a robot” — a comparison she makes often -– while keeping the pain a secret from most others. When she got home, she could do nothing but collapse.

I am thankful to Paula again for sharing this look into life with challenges.

Eph 3:14-18

14 When I think of the wisdom and scope of His plan, I fall down on my knees and pray to the Father of all the great family of God-some of them already in heaven and some down here on earth- 16 that out of His glorious, unlimited resources He will give you the mighty inner strengthening of his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts, living within you as you trust in Him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love; 18 and may you be able to feel and understand, as all God’s children should, how long, how wide, how deep, and how high His love really is; and to experience this love for yourselves, though it is SO GREAT that you will never see the end of it or fully know or understand it. And so at last you will be filled up with God himself.
TLB

Verse 18 makes me imagine God trying with passion to describe how great His love for us is, wanting us to understand how He feels for us, then He basically says, “There are no words, no way for Me to make you understand how great it is, because it cannot even be measured, it will NEVER end.” We cannot fathom the perfect love that God, our perfect Father, has for us.

Thank You, Kathy, for working so faithfully and so diligently to teach me about God’s love and human love. Your love and your endurance will never be forgotten.

Kathleen Ann (my older sister)
Dec 29, 1956 – February 14, 2000

I absolutely love this song. The words are fantastically true and the music catchy. It is written and performed by a group called Newsong. I hope it blesses you as well.

Sheltering Trees

it’s been said a friend is like a mighty sheltering tree
a place of refuge we can run when trouble comes for you and me
someone we can count on through the thick and thin
when the storms of life are blowing, there’s
just nothing like a friend
(there’s just nothing like a friend)

chorus:
we all need sheltering trees
friends in our lives who’ll get down on their knees
and lift us up before the king of kings
we all need sheltering trees

there’ve been days that i was sure that i couldn’t make it through
clouds of doubt came rolling in and i didn’t know what i would do
i would’ve given in and said i just can’t go on
if it hadn’t been for a friend that helped me to be strong
(helped me to be strong)

chorus

bridge:
you can face the highest mountain and
the climb won’t feel so high
or cross the darkest valley and it won’t seem so wide
nothing is impossible when a friend is by your side

Thank You to Christian Lyrics Online!

I am not even sure where I heard this in my past, but I took notes, and just ran across them again. As Christians, we usually talk about being given “grace for the moment” “grace to endure” “grace for the situation” etc. Grace that is focused on the problem we are facing. Paul is one of the most quoted in this:

To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. -2Cor12:7-9 niv

Then someone pointed out that God’s grace is sufficient whether I am asked to carry the burden, or I am asked to watch someone else carry a burden. God gives us participant grace and spectator grace, and we need to be careful not to cross the line into something God has not called us to. Yes, He asks us to

Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. -Gal 6:2 nasb

but it doesn’t mean to fix it for them. It doesn’t say to carry it instead of them. We are to be there for them, supporting them, encouraging them.

I spoke of this previously in a post here, before I had heard someone explain it in simple terms.

No matter which side you are on, suffering is never easy. Watching someone carry a burden is a suffering all it’s own, feeling helpless as someone we love and care about experiences pain. Oftentimes I would rather take the suffering upon myself, than to watch someone else struggle under it’s weight. However, that is not my job and by doing so, would cause us both to miss our lesson, and in that, the Blessing.

I was contemplating today, the verses in the Bible about the Potter’s Hand. Oftentimes we are not pleased with the way God has chosen to make us, we want to be someone or something else. Perhaps we don’t like the circumstances He has brought into our lives that go along with how He formed us. Perhaps we don’t like the circumstances that occur while we are being formed. However, His Word clearly says:

How foolish can you be? He is the Potter, and he is certainly greater than you, the clay! Should the created thing say of the one who made it, “He didn’t make me”?
Does a jar ever say, “The potter who made me is stupid”? -Jer 29:16 nlt

When a potter makes jars out of clay, doesn’t he have a right to use the same lump of clay to make one jar for decoration and another to throw garbage into? -Rom9:21 nlt

Then I was rolling around in my head some of the different creations a potter could make. Some that you might choose if you could, and some that you would never pick. Two that came to mind, perceived good and bad, were an urn and a flower vase. So I thought to myself, “What is the difference between these two that would cause me to want to be one and not be the other?”

Into one, we put death; into the other, we put life. Hmmm. So we are symbolized by God to be pots, what are we going to choose to put in ours? Life by allowing the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? Life by absorbing God’s Word? or death, by allowing ourselves to be filled by the world?

It’s all about what we put in it.

On the subject of being more vulnerable:

In September several of us attended a Chonda Pierce concert. It was one week before she recorded her new video, and though I was excited at the thought that she would being “practicing” her new stuff on us, I was thinking that it would have been fun to actually attend a recording. After experiencing the evening in which she talked for 3 hours non-stop, and then recently watching the 1.5 hour video, I am convinced we got the better end of the deal. The video is excellent however, and I have given several copies away. In person, Chonda completely opened herself to us, and it was an amazingly fantastic evening!

She stated that in deciding to be vulnerable in such a public way, she had sought the Word of God for healing and direction. Not knowing where to look, she started “in the begining…” Genesis. In the garden before the fall, God created Adam, and then Eve, and Gen 2:25 nlt states:

Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame.

What I’ve longed for most all my life is to be able to look at the body of Christ and tell the absolute truth and for them to accept me right where I am. -Chonda Stayin Alive Laughing

She goes on with her story. Then came the eating of the forbidden fruit and the world turned. Adam and Eve felt shame, and tried by their own efforts to cover their shame with fig leaves, a symbol of our constantly trying to cover our sins with our own efforts.

At that moment their eyes were opened, and they suddenly felt shame at their nakedness. So they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves. Gen 3:7 nlt

The Father takes a walk in the garden and asks:

“Where are you?” Gen 3:9 nlt

not because He didn’t know where they were physically, because He was asking about their hearts. The Father loves His children, the way He hopes we will learn to love each other. We should be concerned about one anothers hearts, under the coverings, and not make them feel shame for it. Adam replies to God:

“I heard you walking in the garden, so I hid. I was afraid because I was naked.” Gen 3:10 nlt

And in God’s incredible heartfelt concern He says:

“Who told you that you were naked?” Gen 3:11

for He never intended us to know. His plan was for unashamed fellowship between His children. We corrupted that.

So I ask you, as you hide from others, Who told you that you were naked? Who made you feel shame?

Who hurt you in such a way that you lost that sweet innocence that I created you to be? Who told you, you were unlovable? -Chonda, Stayin Alive Laughing

It wasn’t the Heavenly Father. His heart, as Chonda put it, would say,

“I hate that you found out what evil looks like.”

In a picture of what He knew was ahead for His future children, and out of His unconditional love, the Father sacrifices an animal to cover Adam and Eve in their shame. “The first death of something He created.” God knows that blood must be shed to cover sin.

note: Her book, Laughing in the Dark, is available here for those who want to read the detailed version of her unashamed story.