Forgiveness and completion

I found it almost funny that my devotion this morning was about forgiveness. It was called the difference between the power of prayer and the power of God, but for me, it was about forgiveness. The scripture that states:

And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.” 

I think sometimes we really do work hard at forgiving. Sometimes it's because of scriptures like this one, sometimes it's because we get tired of drinking the poison and waiting for the other person to die. Whatever our reason, we know that it's wrong, no matter how we try to justify it. I mean seriously, don't you want God to forgive your sins?!? 

This is where I found myself this morning, needing to forgive, yet again! The bishop is speaking to my parents church today and you don't know how badly I want to go up there and give him a piece of my mind. (Well, some of you do.) Instead, here I sit, talking to God and writing to you. That's when I found this:

CLOSURE or COMPLETION

Due to the current overlay of therapy terminology in our language, everyone now seems to wish for "closure." This word is unfortunate; it is not faithful to the open-ended rhythm of experience. Creatures made of clay with porous skin and porous minds are quite incapable of the hermetic sealing that the strategy of "closure" seems to imply. 

The word “completion” is a truer word. Each experience has within it a dynamic of unfolding and a narrative of emergence. Oscar Wilde once said, "The supreme vice is shallowness. Whatever is realized is right." When a person manages to trust experience and be open to it, the experience finds its own way to realization. Though such an ending may be awkward and painful, there is a sense of wholesomeness and authenticity about it. Then the heart will gradually find that this stage has run its course and the ending is substantial and true. Eventually the person emerges with a deeper sense of freedom, certainty, and integration. 

~ John O'Donohue

I am at a place of completion. 

It's that simple really and yet that hard. When I left this state in 1986, it was something that I had wanted to do since I was in High School. I spent the next 20 years wanting to go home, back to Arkansas. Being back here has been awesome, awkward, full of laughs and full of pain... it has been part of my life. I have been open to the experiences and as real as I know how to be. This chapter is done, this part of the play has run it's course and the ending is true for me. There need not be closure just completion.

There is sadness in leaving again, but this time around I have Jesus with me in a whole different way. In having that new way with Jesus, I also have new hope. 

As it was said with such style years ago by the great MC Hammer:U Cant Touch This

Forgiveness!

Aren't Smartphones the best? OK, they aren't better than Jesus, but you can bet they are a lot easier to carry around than your computer! 

I have been thinking about getting a Kindle, so I can read whatever I want, whenever I want. I got the Kindle app on my phone and I downloaded cool stuff like Whinny the Pooh and I found this free book called "Why we eat our own". It's by a pastor in Colorado named Michael Cheshire. He and a group of friends stated The Journey Church in Conifer CO. Anyway, this book has started to change my life, and I gotta tell ya, I needed it.

Preacher man and I are leaving the Methodist Church. Surprise! In hind sight, everything we have ever done has lead us to leave and jump out there for Jesus in a totally new and different way. Things like starting our own business, running a soup kitchen, running boards, cleaning churches, leaving all that you know to go to seminary, healing and wholeness, prayer, and flat out having to love Jesus and each other into every moment.

For the past three weeks, we have hurt, but we have also healed. I have wanted to reach out and smack a whole lot of folks, but Jesus had something else in mind. 

Forgiveness. It's really an easy concept when you ask others to forgive you. It is something totally different when you have to do it yourself and forgive the people you would rather run over with a lawn mower!

Here's the deal: All I have to do is allow Jesus access to my heart and he will work the forgiveness stuff out.

So the grains of sand in my hourglass are still running, and I don't want to waste anymore time with unforgiveness, self righteousness or justification! So I forgive you Sylvan Hills UMC and all the people that make you what you are as a church! 

In 4 days, we will be out of here and I want to thank the Jepko's, Smith's, Shadle's, Clarke's and Christina for being the heart of Christ to Alex and I. We could have done it without you, but I'm so glad we didn't have to. 

My heart breaks when I think about leaving my sweet, crazy neighbors! The meals, treats, talks over the fence, and just allowing me to be me has made our short stay here so much funner!

We came back to Arkansas to be closer to our folks. So that's where we are headed, Heber Springs. We are not leaving ministry, it will just look different from here on out. You can still contact us the way you always have. I'm signing out of blogging, until we get set up in the new digs. 

Peace out! Forgive!

and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ~ Romans 5:5       

Forgive!

Do you have unforgiveness in your heart? Is it justified? How long have you been holding on to it? 

I'm going to bet that if we are truly honest with ourselves, we have to answer yes! I feel like I'm always in a state of forgiving, or at least trying. When you think about it, facing responsibility and forgiving people are really two sides of the same coin. 

The reason some people have never been able to forgive is that if they forgive, the last rug would be pulled out from under them and they would have no one to blame. Think about that for a minute. If we forgive, who do we blame for our short comings? Our attitudes? Being over weight?

Facing responsibility and forgiving are almost the same action; in some instances you need to do them simultaneously. Jesus made it very plain that no healing occurs until there is deep forgiveness.

Does it happen overnight? Is it easy? If it were easy, everybody would be doing it! In fact, I don't know that we do it, we allow Jesus to come into our lives and do it through us. We allow or ask Jesus to do it. I have said on many occasions: Jesus, I can't forgive them, but I want to! Help me! Show me how, or just do it in me! It starts to happen. When we allow the true healer to do his work in us, we are truly healed.     

iPhone

I went to help my sister out earlier this week and while I was there, my iPhone got wet and long story short, died in a small hot mess! I was at first amazed at how much I depend on that crazy thing and then, wanted to blame someone for my misery and loss! My sister! It was her glass that held the water! Apple! They made the phone! The full moon! You can always blame strange things on the moon! Preacher man! If he had been there it wouldn't have happened. 

All this got me to thinking about how we love to blame everybody else for our problems. Jesus had this issue going on when he asked the sick man that had laid by the pool ill for 38 years (John 5:6). Do you really want to be healed, or do you just want to talk about your problem? Do you want to use your problem to get sympathy from others? Do you just want it for a crutch, so you can walk with a limp?

The lame man said to Jesus, But Lord, nobody puts me into the pool. I try but they all get there ahead of me! He wouldn't look deep within his heart to find out whether he really wanted to be healed.

We live in an age where we want to blame someone else instead of facing our own responsibilities. I was the one that placed the glass too close to my phone! No matter how grouching I got, the phone was not going to heal itself, Preacher man was not going to run to the Apple store and fix it for me, and in all honesty, all anyone else could do for me was say, Put it in a bag of rice! 

Did I want my phone fixed? Was I willing to do what it took? Was I willing to face my responsibility in the matter?

When we don't deal with our problems, we may find ourself, 38 years later, still  blaming others for not fixing things for us! Our anger turns to bitterness, which isolates us and only grows into more bitterness. When we don't talk about the problem, it doesn't go away!

Is there something you need to take responsibility for that's causing you to limp? 

Stuck

How many times in your life have you been stuck? I mean any kind of stuck. Stuck in a jam, traffic, in the mud, on a problem, in a relationship, you know, stuck! Do you know that one of the main things that keeps us stuck is fear? Fear of failure, change, success, you name it and we got fear about it! What is the one thing that we say when you realize we have said fear? We say we're going to work on that, don't we? Here's my question to you if you are nodding your head... How in the world do you do that?

I find that I work too stinkin' hard on stuff that I shouldn't even be messing with! Look at fear, what does God say about fear? It ain't  from Him!!! So who would it be that brings us this lovely fear? That's right, the evil one! So if we are holding on to fear, what are we really holding on to?

Here's the deal: When we let go, when we choose, when we risk, we just might find that we are braver than we ever thought possible and stronger than we would have guessed. Why is that? Maybe because we are letting go, choosing, risking it all and that would require wholeheartedness on our part. Cuz you can't let go just some, that's called holding on. What if we were to enter into life fully, all in, all or nothing...ready to be surprised, forgiven, loved, trusted, to engage, to add to someone's life, to be counted on to forgive ourselves and move on? What if?

BUT IT"S SCARY!!! I know dear heart, it is. But the pure glory of it all, of letting go and surrendering, gives you this freedom, this lightness, that you will want again and again. 

I'm so done with workin hard at stuff I have no business workin at. I'm ready to risk, I'm ready to run through the flowers of life and smell everything I can get my hands on! 

I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbably beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings! ~ Mary Oliver

Don't you want to come too?  

Wounds!

I read something pretty profound this morning! It's not new so much as it's timely for me. I always try to stay open to what the Holy Spirit might be saying to me through the things around me, this is what he said to me today:

The wound is the place where the light enters you!

~Rumi

Have you ever thought about it that way? So many times, it's about quick, clean it up and get a bandage on it so it will start healing. Yet, no matter how well we take care for our wounds, they leave scars. Some are bigger than others, some go deeper than we think, and some are where we don't see them and sometimes we forget that we have them until someone helps bring it to our attention. 

Some wounds are seen on the outside, like the one I have on my left knee. I remember how I got this bad boy like it was yesterday! We were stationed in Hawaii and I was at GirlScout camp somewhere up in the mountains. We were taking a hike down to the ocean and I some how slipped on some rocks and fell crashing to the ground and got a nice sized rock jammed in my knee. The leaders cleaned it up and I got in the salt water when we got to the ocean, but to this day I have a scar, which reminds me that acting a fool and running on rocks down a steep hill will get you hurt. So now I make sure that I act a fool in a rock free area!

The wounds I'm really taking about are the ones that we don't get scars that you can see. The ones that come from being told I don't love you anymore. Or from act's of betrayal, divorce, being bullied, lied to, the loss of a loved one, abortion, being made fun of, or even being told you'll never amount to anything. These are the wounds that if we let Jesus, he will enter our lives through those places and clean them up in the most surprising ways.

 Now, don't think that they go away or that you forget about what happened to you. What happens, IF we LET JESUS, is forgiveness, reconciliation, and an ability to help others let Jesus in to heal them. This is what is known as The Healing Ministry. This is part of the ministry that God has opened for me, in fact, if you have let Jesus shine his light on your wounds, this is a place of ministry for you. Our job, as Christians, is not to keep that light to ourselves, it's to allow it to exit our wounds and to help in the healing of others! Isn't that just like Jesus?             

Busy?

Preacher man got home yesterday. I'm pretty happy that I didn't go to Annual Conference, cuz I would be sitting there thinking about what I could be getting done here. This is an example of what I've been getting done. I am starting to wonder, maybe I should have put this off a week? Naw! 


Went and got more boxes at The Creek and delivered some pesto to Nancy, who was pretty excited about it. I hate to get rid of all of it, but I don't think it's going to stay frozen after we unplug the freezer.


I'm washing everything I can get my hands on. The washer and dryer will be leaving tomorrow. I'm coming to a point where I feel like everything we have collected during our marriage has been sold off. You don't think you have attachment issues, get rid of some of your stuff and then talk to me!


The vet called yesterday to let us know that Yazi's remains were ready to be picked up. Some of you might think we're strange, but when you don't have kids, your animals mean the world to you. Sam and Gracie are still in every room I'm in. I walk out of the shower and Sam is laying outside the door. Gracie even wants to go out in the garage with me. 


The excitement of a new place is getting bigger in my sights, and the sadness that comes at leaving a place you've called home is also getting real. I find that I have an awesome peace about all of this every so often. Yet, at the same time, my heart is heavy with missed opportunities and friendships. God calls us to live in the moment, to be here and now. We are so good at running ahead, or falling behind, that we can forget to just be. It's hard to stand here and be ok with being right here, right now. We came here with such high hopes, so much excitement to be out of seminary and in ministry. It was all about what we were going to do. In the end, we didn't do a thing. God did to us a number though that won't soon be forgotten! Isaiah 66:2 says, But this is the one to whom I will look, to the humble and contrite in spirit who trembles at my word. It's been a long two years, but I think I get it now. It's about what we allow God to do in us, even if we aren't in a great and wonderful place, what we are willing to die to so that we can live fuller in Christ. Dying can be a messing thing, it has been for me, but the fullness of Christ living in my now, well, you can't beat that with a stick!  

Holy Week - Forgiveness

I think as a general rule, we find Holy Week a little difficult to understand. The Catholics seem to have it down, but I think it's more like we as human's just have a hard time with suffering and not running from it.


The thing I'm doing this week is just being with Jesus on the way to the cross. To stand when he stands and fall when he falls. To have sorrow with Jesus in sorrow, tears and deep grief because of the great affliction that Jesus endures for me. To support Jesus through this week and just be with him. What I want to do is act like Peter and cut off an ear, or the rest of them, to just disappear when the hard part comes.


Why do you think that is? Am I the only one that wants to avoid pain at all cost? We are so quick to dish it out, yet taking it and standing there, well that's another story all together. I really want to lash out as this week goes by, it's my nature. I want to protect Jesus, make excuses for the way these people were acting, take the hammer away before it strikes the nail! Just make them stop!


Then I read the seven last words of Jesus... The first of which are Father, forgive them, they know not what they do. The first words from the cross are about forgiveness, can you even get your head around that? To forgive those that rejected him, those who inflicted the pain on him, those who turned away and did nothing to rescue him. Me. You. Us.


His very purpose was to bring forgiveness to us, for us. That is something I think we forget about God, we know that God is love, but he is more Holy. Holy can not be around sin. We are full of sin. So even though God loves us and is love, we can't be with Him because we are sinful. Our whole relationship is about forgiveness! The Father sent Jesus to be the word of compassion and forgiveness; and now, as his Church, we are to be that same compassion and forgiveness in our world.


Dude! This is so hard! I've been struggling with this for more than this week, and it is just flat out hard. Know why? I believe it's because we don't really have it in us to do it. Jesus has to do it through us. I have been praying for the grace to want to forgive. I do want to, really I do, now anyway. Now I'm praying that Jesus give me his compassion and his forgiveness to do the work that needs to be done!


What I think is important to remember is that everyday, I wake up and I remember the things Jesus has forgive me for. That humbles my heart and makes it easier to forgive others. Is it done in a moment? You bet it is! However, the evil ones keeps helping me remember the wrongs that have been done against me. So I have to lay it down again. Maybe everyday, for a while. 


But you see, I want to forgive. It gives chances for new beginnings. It allows me the honor to walk with Jesus to the cross. To comfort him in His pain. To support him in His calling to save me!       

Getting Real.

Nikon Sniper

I think there are a lot of us that need to know more about forgiveness. I don't have all the answers, I can't even say, I got this forgiveness thing down! What I can do is talk about what works for me. Try what sounds right to your heart, and throw the rest away!


First and foremost, we need to remember that we are ALL broken and Jesus is the great healer. The Holy Ones' desire is to make us whole. For me, forgiveness is more about God working in my life than it is about me doing much. Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't just happen without anything from me! I have never found myself walking down the road and feeling forgiveness dumped on me! However, I'm also not saying it couldn't happen, cuz God is God and I'm not! 


I think when I know I need to forgive someone, it's starts showing up in my face more than normal. It's almost like God is bringing it to the forefront of my life, cuz he's ready for me to deal with it. So I start out by asking God, What in the world are you wanting me to do about this? The best place to see the answers are in the Bible. So I start looking up scriptures on forgiveness. The one that's rocked my world lately is Matthew 6:14-15, and I'm going to share from the Message.

In prayer, there is a connection between what God does and what you do.

You can't get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others.

If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God's part.

If I don't do my part, but what is my part?

Wanting to forgive.

Well, God, I really don't feel the want to! 

Ask for it.

I kick the ground, turn away, and think about it for a day or 8. 

Why do I always have to be the one to start all this? If they would ask for my forgiveness, I would give it. But I don't want it.

There in lines the key to all of this... wanting it! How in the world do you want something you don't want? Well, friend, it's a choice. You have to choose to want it, then God will give you the grace that you desire and the learning process begins. 

GOD! CHANGE MY HEART SO THAT I WANT TO FORGIVE! 

Everyday, you ask! Every time it comes to mind, you ask! You beg the Holy One to change you from the inside out!

Is it easy? Heck no! I deserve to hold this grudge, this unforgiveness that has been a dis-ease to my soul and has taken me so far away from the love of God.... 

You need to stop justifying your unforgiveness. Lay it down, right here at the feet of my son, and walk away. Come back as often as you need to and lay it down again. He will take it and in place of that dis-ease, my son will give you the peace that passes all understanding.

All we have to do is ask. There is no secret way of doing this. I turn my hands upward, so that I can receive what he gives me. I humbly come before the throne of grace and I get real with my maker!

We all need to get real, and we need to do it now.