Category Archives: Sacred Mundane

This morning I heard the best sermon on finances that I’ve probably ever heard.  The last of the messages from the Proverbs series, this morning we talked about Earning and Using Money Wisely. 

Some interesting statistics.  This Christmas the average American spends $1,000 in Christmas gifts (per individual not necessarily per family), and $500 in holiday travel.  $1,500 per person this Christmas alone, and that doesn’t count the inflatable snowmen in the yard, lighted Santa Clauss and reindeer paraphernalia on the roof, and the electricity bill for the Christmas lights.  Oh boy do we know how to spend. 

What’s more shocking is this.  The US consumes 40% of the world’s resources. 40%.  We only make up 5% of the population.  So we could say that on average we consume eight times more stuff than the rest of the world.  (And we weigh about eight times as much too but that’s another post.)  Of that 40% that we consume, 70% of that is spend between Thanksgiving and Christmas.  70%! Ugh. ‘Tis the Season. 

The answer, as I’ve said before in other posts on money, is not only to spend less (although that’d be a good place to start!), but to spend wisely.  Most of us think that if we only had a little bit more money, then we’d be set.  But the truth is, we don’t need more money, we need wisdom to manage the money that we have.  10% of the book of Proverbs is devoted to issues surrounding money.  About 25% of Jesus’ teachings revolved around issues of money, possessions, etc.  Since we know that God doesn’t need our money (how ludicrious is that?), we know that issue is our hearts, and God knows that best way to expose the state of one’s heart is to expose the state of one’s checkbook.  Where our treasure is there our heart will be also (Luke 12:34).

My prayer is Proverbs 30:8-9, “First help me never to tell a life.  Second, give me neither poverty nor riches! Give me just enough to satisfy my needs.  For if I grow rich, I may deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” and if I am too poor, I may steal and thus insult God’s holy name.”  Lord, give us this day our daily bread.  Provide for our needs, and make us conduits of your resources and grace. 

Probably the biggest thing that stuck out to me about this message was the reality that worship is sacrifice.  In the Old Testament, you didn’t come to worship God with empty hands.  And more than that, you didn’t bring your lame three-legged goat with eye sores! You brought the best!  The book of Malachi is full of God’s rebuke to His people for their nasty ridiculous sacrifices.  God’s saying, “I don’t want your three-legged goat! I want your best or not at all.”  God doesn’t want our leftover change.  God wants our hearts.  He wants the firstfruits (Prov. 3:9-10), the best portion, the very first check we write every month.  Now that Jesus has once and for all satisfied the sacrificial offering of the Old Testament, Paul tells us to “offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship” (Romans 12:1).  We are to continue to sacrifice as our act of worship, through the giving of our lives.  This includes our time, our talents, and yes, our money.

But perhaps it is in that word “our” that we fall prey to misconception.  The real reason that many of us still struggle with sacrificial giving (I’m lumping myself in there too!), is that we don’t truly understand the concept of possessing nothing.  We don’t truly understand that none of it is ours.  Joel asked, if someone handed you $50,000 and then asked to have $5,000 back, would you feel cheated? Of course not!  It wasn’t yours in the first place.  But with God we seem to have forgotten this critical truth.  Perhaps the right question is not, “Lord how much do you want me to give?” but rather “Lord, how much do you want me to keep?” 

Though Joel purposely doesn’t know what any of the people in the church give, he did share some amazing statistics from our business pastor.  The nine elders of our church give 15% of the total budget. Oh my goodness that is startling!  The staff give another 5% of the total budget.  So of the entire church budget of over 800 adults, 20% of the entire budget comes from the 20 elders and staff.  20% of the budget coming from 2% of the church.  Hm…  I have a feeling our church isn’t alone in this trend. 

I must say, something must have been right about the spirit in which Joel shared this morning because I left feeling excited about giving more.  I left feeling inspired to think of ways to curb our spending and energized to look at our budget and ask God where He wants to change things.  I know that God loves a cheerful giver, and this message definitely made my heart feel this way. God has been so absolutely amazingly generous to Jeff and me, richly blessing us with health, amazing family, eternal life (!!!), peace, joy, the comfort of the Holy Spirit, an incredible son and thriving daughter.  He has given us shelter, food, clothing, rich friendships and an awesome marriage. Why wouldn’t I want to give back every ounce that I can?  Freely we have received, free give!

So as we head into the season that is characterized by consumption, spending, and materialism, let’s what it means to be thankful and content.  How sad is it that Thanksgiving, the one day of the year that our nation sets aside to express thankfulness, usually only includes a 30-second prayer of obligatory thanks?  And how sad is it that mere hours after this supposed holiday of thankfulness our nation begins the frenzy of shopping on Black Friday. Isn’t that ironic?  Black Friday, which now begins at midnight after Thanksgiving, has crept closer and closer into the sacredness of Thanksgiving, until now we almost immediately turn from our offering of thanks to thinking about all the new stuff we can buy the next day.  Perhaps this year could be different.  Perhaps this year we can offer up a sacrifice of true thanksgiving to God, content and grateful to the core.  And perhaps this year we can give a little more, spend a little less, and enjoy the wonder of Christ, the most beautiful, valuable, and captivating treasure our hearts will ever know.  ‘Tis the Season. 

I’ll just tell you, right now I’m struggling.  I’m struggling with desiring some stability and security.  We have moved eight times in the almost 5 1/2 years that we’ve been married, and I’m now almost 6 1/2 months pregnant with baby #2.  Insert insatiable urge to nest, coupled with the exhaustion of being on my final lap of the marathon that has been the 4 years of seminary.  I can see the end.  I feel like the last 4 1/2 years have been one long crazy transition, moving every six months, juggling work, seminary, pregnancy, baby, living with parents, commuting.  Right now I just want to curl up with my babies and never pack a box, grade a paper, or change addresses ever again. Ever.  The place on my driver’s license where you put new address stickers is layered so thick pretty soon I won’t be able to slide it into that clear plastic sleeve in my wallet.   

I found out today that we have some major obstacles to selling our home. I feel completely overwhelmed and desperate for wisdom.  I have no idea what to do.  We could move back into our McMinnville home, which would mean Jeff commuting two hours a day, six days a week, me changing hospitals and doctors a month before the baby is born, and commuting three hours to school for my internship meeting one day a week with a newborn.  This does not seem practical.  Our other option is let the home sit empty and risk losing every ounce of our equity if the house doesn’t sell in six months.  Right now I’d like to just snuggle down in bed, fall asleep, and wake up in 6 months when Dutch is potty trained and Heidi is sleeping through the night and we’re in a home of our own that’s not for sale. 

Let’s talk about sex.  We’ve never done this on this blog, and I’m a little afraid that now my spam-comment filter will have to go into overdrive catching all the ridiculous incoming junk.  But I think this is definitely our topic de jour. First my Biblical Perspectives of Family Ministry class has just finished the section on sexuality, then Pastor Joel just preached “Desire Wisely,” where he taught through Proverbs 5 and 7. 

Specifically, we’re called to LiveDifferent with regard to our sexuality.  A few things really stood out to me from the lessons these past few weeks.  

Sin Pursues Us.  There are two main personifications in Proverbs–Wisdom and Sin.  Wisdom is personified as a woman, and we are told to seek after her–above all, get wisdom!  We’re to pursue it.  But sin, or immorality specifically, also portrayed as a woman, pursues us.  We don’t have to go looking for it. It crouches at the door, like a lion, seeking to destroy us (Gen. 4:7).  We’re told that the immoral woman in Prov. 7 found this simple, naive, foolish young man and “She threw her arms around him and kissed him … You’re the one I was looking for! I came out to find you and here you are! … Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning…” (NLT).  We must recognize that sin is after us.  Just consider our sex-drenched culture.  Joel pointed out that 50 years ago Lucy and Ricky didn’t even sleep in the same bed on TV for fear of being too suggestive.  Now we have entire shows devoted to sex and suggestive behavior.  A recent study he found showed that (surprise!) those teenagers who watched sexually suggestive TV shows regularly were twice as likely to have a teenage pregnancy as those who did not.  It’s everywhere!  We don’t have to seek out impurity.  It comes after us. We’re wise to beware.

This applies to more than just sexual sin.  If we don’t resist the world, we will become just like it. It is natural to live naturally. I naturally will tend toward becoming engulfed in things like pursuing comfort, pleasure and superficiality.  But it takes supernatural power to live in a supernatural way.  We must be proactive to flee sin and pursue wisdom, righteousness, and holiness.

Naivity is Foolishness.  The young man in Proverbs 5 and 7 who is seduced by this woman is described as simple, naive, young, foolish.  We are stupid if we think that we or our marriages are above temptation and destruction.  We are wise to set boundaries, flee, remove any opportunity for tempation.  As women it might make us feel better to pretend that our husbands will never struggle with lust, pornography, or sexual temptation, but the reality is that they are bombarded with temptation every day.  We need to understand the danger and take necessary precautions. 

Things like internet accountability software is great. Every two weeks I get a report emailed to me of every website that Jeff has visited.  I see lots of ESPN and desiringgod.org (John Piper’s site)!  I’m so thankful for his initiative to do this. The fact that he chooses to do this communicates that he loves me and cares about our marriage.  We also made a little pact that before we accept any “friend requests” on Facebook from members of the opposite sex that we check with each other.  It’s just a simple way to make sure we’re up on each other’s lives. We also don’t become friends with any opposite sex people that the other doesn’t know.  Little things.  Though we might not like to think about it the dangers out there, it can save a marriage!  My marriage professor said that every once in a while she and her husband will just ask each other, “Is there anyone I need to be worried about?” That way they can talk through any worrisome behavior or temptation before it goes any further. 

Lastly, Marriage is The Place for The Fire to Blaze.  Fire can save lives and destroy them.  What’s disturbing about sex is that everyone who’s not married is doing it and everyone who’s married is not! What’s with that?!  Pastor Joel exhorte the married couples–YOU have the environment for this fire to blaze.  Set it on fire!  The best way to prevent extra-marital sexual involvment is to make sure there is marital sexual involvement!

So there you have it.  Might not get a whole lot of comments on this post, 🙂 and I’m ok with that.  “For you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Cor. 6:20).  Let’s LiveDifferent by honoring God with our bodies.

So I’ve been waiting patiently to tell this story until I had the green light from my husband.  Sometimes it takes some time before you can share things … and I knew I’d done enough harm that from now on I would let Jeff make the calls about, well, everything.  This is a little story to you ladies about what not to do to your husbands.

So, my incredibly handsome, fit, trim, intelligent, amazing husband has some serious gray-hair genes.  His dad was absolutely silver before he was 40.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I admit I’m not ready for my tall, dark, and handsome husband to be tall, silver, and handsome…at least not yet. So he’s got some gray hair which looks fabulous, but I came up with the idea that before he started his new job it’d be fun dye his hair, just to keep the gray from becoming, let’s say, overly aggressive and getting out of control.  “It’ll be fun!” I said.

Jeff, however, is not a hair-dye kind of guy. He was adamately opposed. “It’s not honest,” he insisted. “I want to be the real me.  Gray hair and all. I am who I am and I want people to know that what they see is what they get.”  To my eternal chagrin I persisted: “But honey, you’re doing it for me. It’s not dishonest, it’s just like how I take care of myself to bless you.  It’s just like that. Puh-lease??”  Oh dear. I can almost hear Eve’s syrupy voice echoing through my head: “Come’on Adam…it’s so tasty.  Won’t you show me how much you love me by eating with me. Puh-lease???”  Batting her ridiculous eyelashes.  Good grief.

So, he succombed to my pressure.  So I tried a dark brown color, and though it was fine, it definitely did NOT look like his natural color.  It was just off enough to draw my eye constantly to his head…definitely not what I’d hoped for.  So, one week before he started his new job, late on a Friday night, after we’d watched a movie and were about to head to bed, I suggest that I do one more fix-it on his hair to get it to the darker black color that he naturally is.  Again, sweet husband of mine, gave in.

Mind you this is 10pm on a Friday night. Where my idiotic mind was I have no idea. The next day we were both in a wedding, serving communion.  The following day, Sunday, was our special going-away service at church where Jeff would be up front on the stage sharing with the congregation about our new plans.  Then, he had school, then that following Wednesday we had a special Welcome Luncheon with all the staff at our new church. Then he would start work at his new job, Mr. Associate Pastor, the following Monday.  Do you get the picture?

Fix-it dye #2 is a disaster.  His hair, apparently because it had already been dyed, took the dye WAY to heavy and it turned GOTH black, like blue-black, the kind that’s so shiny it’s like a Halloween wig.  Seriously.  It also had gotten all over his forehead and ears and dyed them black. So he had a black hairline, black ears, and black nceck.  I tried to pretend it wasn’t that bad, but when Jeff went downstairs to straighten things up, I crawled in bed and started crying. It was horrible.  He looked ridiculous, like he had a big black wig on.  What do I do? Panicking I get online and starting google searches about undoing horrible hair colors. I find out about a product called Color Woops or something and see that Walgreens carries it and that Walgreens is open until 11pm.  WIthout a word I dry my tears, march downstairs, in my sweats, slip on some flipflops, grab my purse, walk out the door, and drive to Walgreens where I find my magic stuff.

Back home now, I show him the magic stuff and he agrees to let me try.  His scalp is feeling a bit tender, having been dyed twice now, but we figure we’re almost done with the horror. This stuff will supposedly take hair “back to its natural color”.  Perfect.  We apply, wait the allotted time. Rinse.  NO. No, no, no.  HORROR beyond HORROR. Now the roots have turned BRIGHT orange, like a pumpkin, and the ends of his hair are still black.  Plus, it’s blotchy, so it looks like he’s used that orange and black spray on color people use at Halloween or OSU football games.  NOT ok for a wedding.  NOT ok for a first day of work as the new pastor. Not ok.  More tears.  Prayers. Pleading with God to somehow erase my stupidity. 

Trip to Fred Meyer. Another color.  Again, it goes straight to GOTH black.  This time we decide we must go to bed, as its midnight and Jeff’s scalp is burning so bad he’s groaning and clenching his fists while we wait for the color to set.  I’m crying. Praying. Pleading.

The next morning I have to meet someone out of town, so I’m forced to leave my poor ebony-haired husband home with our son. He’s supposed to drive Dutch out to Mom & Dad’s so that we can leave for the wedding at 12:30.  I have to leave the house at 8:20. At 8:05 I race to Fred Meyer to try one last color, a lighter one.  We put it on, rinse. At 8:40 his hair is blacker than ever and I have to leave.  Crying the whole way down I-5 I’m convinced I’ve ruined my husband’s life.  We talk on the phone and decide that since he’s driving Dutch out to Mom & Dad’s he can stop by the store, get one more Oops Color and a lighter shade of brown, and dye his hair by himself at my parents’ house before coming back and meeting me for the wedding.  Ok, good.  I’m feeling horrible about the fact that he has to walk into a drug store by himself and buy Oops Color and hair dye, feeling I’m sure like a complete idiot. I tell him to explain to everyone he sees that it’s his WIFE who is the idiot, not him. Of course he won’t do that.

So to make matters worse, we discover that the keys to his car are in my purse. He has no keys. Cannot take Dutch out to Mom and Dad’s.  Cannot drive to the store to get hair product.  So the man WALKS to the store, with our son, pushing a stroller. I still cannot even fathom the courage this must have taken, to walk proudly into a drug store, pushing a toddler boy in our ghetto stroller, and buying Oops color and hair dye.  He wore a hat, but he said the lady at the counter couldn’t keep a straight face. Bless his heart.

To make a long story a tiny bit shorter, suffice it to say that we did a total of TEN treatments on Jeff’s hair.  His scalp literally started blistering and falling off.  For a week chunks of skin kept flaking off.  And his hair is still an odd purple-red-blackish color.  Do you think I’ve learned my lesson?  Oh dearie.  Yes I have. 

But this is what amazes me about my husband.  He never once blamed me or got angry.  He NEVER lost his temper or got frustrated. In fact, selfish me was crying and saying how horrible the whole situation was and how stupid I am and he comforted ME, insisting it wasn’t my fault and I didn’t know how bad it would be.  He never once told people, “My stupid wife did this to me.”  He turned the whole thing into a joke, unafraid of admitting what had happened.  Last week at church he was given a chance to introduce himself and briefly share his testimony. He opened by saying, “If my hair looks purple it’s because it is.  In a few weeks it’ll be gray. You’ll have to ask us about that story.” 

But this is what haunted me through this whole thing:  How my stupid decision hurt no one but the one who deserved it least. I deserved to have ruined hair. I deserved to have my scalp burning off and blistering and flaking off in chunks. I deserved to look ridiculous and have to explain to everyone that I was an idiot.  But my hair looks just fine. It’s my husband who suffers. My sweet, kind, caring, humble, gentle husband who suffers because of my decision.  I kept pleading with God, “Lord, please don’t let Jeff suffer because of my stupidity.” And yet I kept sensing that God was teaching me something I would never forget–our selfish, stupid decisions hurt those we love the most.  And so often others suffer the consequences of our stupid decisions.  IT doesn’t seem fair, but it’s true.  We see it everywhere. Children suffer from the divorce of their parents.  Unborn children suffer for the decisions of their parents.  Victims everywhere suffer because of others’ stupid decisions.  Our actions and decisions affect others profoundly. 

But more than any of those examples…our Lord Jesus Himself. Even now tears stream down my cheeks as I realize that ultimately THE Innocent One suffered for our sin.  The one who least deserved to die was crucified so that our sin could be atoned.  The innocent for the guilty.  The consequences of my sin poured out on the perfect sinless One.  Oh Jesus help us understand.  Help us understand.

God also was showing me how costly our sin is. Though dyeing Jeff’s hair might not have been sin per se, it was definitely stupid and selfish, and selfishness is sin.  You want to know how much we spent on hair treatments? Yeah, close to $100.  That’s costly all right.  Ridiculously costly.  I lost sleep. I was exhausted Monday morning at school because I’d spent all night dyeing hair and all day worrying about it.  I was anxious about meeting new people because I was afraid they’d think, “What on earth did he do to his hair?”  The anxiety of it sapped my energy, my joy, my vitality.  This is what sin does.  This is what selfishness does.   How costly was the sin in the garden? How costly is my daily sin? Your daily sin?  Beyond comprehension. It was so costly that it took the perfect sinless Son of God to die a cruel death to remove our guilt.  Do you think sin is costly?  We have no idea. 

So I take away from this hair dye trauma the lesson that we as women have incredible power to help or harm our husbands, children, friends.  Every day we make decisions that bless, edify, help, encourage, or that harm.  And others live with the consequences of our actions.  No one sins in a bubble. I take away that my Savior suffered for my sin.  He bore a lot more shame that Jeff did with his purple hair. He bore every ounce of sin and shame and pain from every sinful deed.  He bore it all. 

I will say that the $100 was worth it to gain this lesson. I will never forget it. I think I’ll forever walk a little less proudly.  I think I’ll question myself a little more often.  I pray that God gives me grace in the midst of my stupidity, my vanity, my selfishness.  I pray He helps us understand the power of our influence, and the great cost of our selfish and stupid decisions.  It may have only been Jeff’s hair, but it represents so much more.  It represents Christ. 

I’m thankful to report that Jeff’s scalp has healed. His hair is still kind of purpleish, but in a few weeks I’m sure he’ll be back to his normal, wonderful, dark graying self.  I will never again try to alter my man.  He is perfect for me.  He is gracious, forgiving, gentle, merciful, loving. And I’ll forever understand just a little better the way Eve must have felt.  I’m ashamed to admit how much like her I really am. Thank You, Lord Jesus, for suffering the consequences of our sin.  I cannot say it enough. Thank You Lord Jesus.

So, in order to keep the integrity of this blog, and uphold the standard of honesty, I have to make a confession.  *Deep breath* …here goes…I am now the driver of an SUV. 

*GASP* *CHOKE*  “No!  No! How can you be a Kashi eating, LiveDifferent Challenging, Trader Joe shopping, radical recycling girl and drive the devil’s vehicle?!  Have you gone soft?! What next?!”  No, no, let me explain.  Before you start blaming West Linn, let me explain.  We’ve shared one car for the past year, a Honda accord.  Before that we had a great little Honda 2-door civic which I drove for eight years.  So you can see we are Honda fans.  And yes, I admit, deep down in my secret heart I thought the most perfect family car in the world was a Honda Pilot because they seat 8 if needed, get good gas mileage, have a great Honda service record, and retain their value really well.  But owning an SUV always seemed like a no-no if I was going to consider myself a decent environmentally responsible steward.  Well…when Jeff started his new job we had to have a 2nd car because we had to be in two different places as I’m still in school.  Not wanting to buy anything, we borrowed an old Jeep my dad had that he was trying to sell. So we were living in a house that a family member is trying to sell and driving a car that a family member was trying to sell! My dad got the idea that if he could trade his jeep straight across for a family car of some sort, then we could have the car and then just pay him for it as we were able, with no interest. (I know, generous father!)

So, guess what he found to trade?  A crazy ridiculously amazing deal on a 2003 Honda Pilot.  And he got it for $6,000 less than the normal price because my dad is Mr. Dealer.  So, to make a long story short, we got a phone call from my dad at 3:30pm last Friday: “You have to come sign papers so the title can be in your name!”  I test drove the car, Jeff raced home, we signed papers, and by 5:30pm we were driving it home.  A Honda Pilot. Yes, I know, an SUV.  I spent Saturday feeling ridiculously guilty for having a nice car, wondering what people would think if they saw me driving such a beautiful rig (did I mention it’s silver and gorgeous?), and then realized I was offending God by feeling guilty.  The car was an amazing gift from a loving father (actually two loving fathers, one earthly and one heavenly!), a huge blessing beyond what I would ever have asked for.  Easy to clean leather seats, tons of room for toys and carseats and strollers, 4wheel drive for our trips to visit Jeff’s mom in Bend.  The best part is that my back is singing for joy because now I don’t have to bend over to put my huge son into his carseat–no more stooping!  I know it sounds ridiculous but everytime I drive the car I feel like it’s a kiss from God. 

Ok, last bit of confession is that the thing that makes it even more humorous is that the car has a DVD player.  We don’t even have a TV or DVD player in our house!  So yeah, the joke is that if we want to have friends over to watch a movie we can just go sit in the driveway in our car with a bowl of popcorn.  And, to correct what I wrote in an earlier post, the “necessary repairs” were bogus…we just need a timing belt and we’re good to go.  Yay!

Whew! There it is. You have it all.  it’s off my chest. Condemn me if you will.  The confession of this SUV driver is that Jesus Christ is Lord. I deserve nothing, but He chooses to give and take away as He sees.  And for today, I’ll be groovin’ singing praises to God guilt-free in a sweet silver SUV. 

I must say that I would take a rebuke from the Lord over a rebuke from a person any day of the week.  God is kind, so loving, so gentle!  He is everything that I am not.  This past weekend, the message from Proverbs was on our Speech. Since I’d just written a LiveDifferent challenge on speech (and actually Pastor Joel used that James 2 video that was posted here last week!), I didn’t want to repeat myself.  Then again, Jesus repeated Himself, and I think the value of watching our speech is worth repeating!

But this past week it was one particular thing that stood out to me, even though I’d written about the very verse the week before: The reality that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks (Luke 6:45).  Pastor Joel gave the illustration that sometimes we say things, and then we catch ourselves and say, “Oh I didn’t mean that! That’s so unlike me to say something like that. THat’s totally not what I meant!”  ANd he pointed out–no, that’s not true.  You did mean it, that’s why you said it. You are that kind of person, and you did mean exactly whaht you said and how you said it because your words pour out of your heart.  So we can try all we want to change our words, but the problem is our hearts. 

I couldn’t breathe for a moment as God’s convicting Spirit began to work, causing my heart to physically ache.  The problem is my heart.

We all have people in our lives who challenge us.  Perhaps it’s a daily battle not to be irritated, hurt, frustrated, critical.  Perhaps we always have to watch what we say, bite our tongues, carefully choose our response. While that is fine and good (better than spouting off!), the real problem is that we lack love.  As clear as the pastor’s voice, I could hear God’s Spirit asking me, “Do you love?”  Peter exhorts us, “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” (1 Pet. 4:8).  The real problem when we find our reactions and words welling up threatening to spew out is that our hearts are wicked, and we don’t really love people.  If we really loved them, that supernatural love would cover their sins and shortcomings, the same way that love covers ours.  If we’re honest, we don’t love our enemies. We don’t even love our families!  Our love is so weak, so tempermental, so conditional.  We are fair-weather lovers. 

So this week I just began praying that God would not just change my speech, my attitude, my outward actions, but that God would do a work from the inside out.  “Change me from the inside,” is my plea.  Help me love.  Change my heart.  I don’t just want to hold my tongue, Lord, I want You to hold my heart. From the Inside-Out, Lord, change this heart. 

You know that feeling when there’s someone you really would rather not talk to you so you kind of, well, avoid them.  Well that’s sort of what I’ve been doing with my blog.  I’ve avoided opening the page, avoided checking for comments, pretty much avoided the whole thing.  Why?  I’m a little ashamed to admit, I just don’t have anything to say.  Plus, life shifted into overdrive when Jeff started his new job (which he LOVES, thank You Jesus!), so I feel like it’s been all I can do to keep my head above water.  The house has shown several times, I’m wondering if we’ll need to move right before the baby’s born, I’m now in the third trimester (read: large!), Jeff’s had early and late meetings, and today I took my car in for service to discover we need about $1,100 in maintenance. Gulp.  Deep breath.  Anyway, you know what? Those are the same things that YOU are dealing with, dear friends, right?!  This is life. Nothing strange. Just life.  The sacredness of the mundane, ya?  So, I wish I had some deep spiritual truth to share with you today, but I do not.  And the thing I fall back on when I’m just feeling tired, dry, and spent is thankfulness.  Simple thanks.  This is the day the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it.  Here’s what I’m thankful for. How about you?  Drop me a comment and share…

I’m thankful

1. For my car service bills because it means I have a car!

2. For rain because it makes Oregon green and gorgeous. (And for the beautiful sunshine today!)

3. For simple pleasures like a pumpkin scone today.

4. For a son who is a stellar nap-taker.

5. For the lively girl in my belly who has all-night dance parties.

6. For sidewalks, legs that work, and my old used stroller that’s worth its weight in gold.

7. For the public library!

8. For our church home that we LOVE LOVE LOVE!

9. For nursery workers who give our little ones so much love!

10. For a sweet husband who picks things up off the floor so I don’t have to stoop as often.

Off to the laundry…bye for now.

24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.  Heb. 10:24-25

There is something so powerful about gathering together for church.  I tell you, it is truly remarkable.  Today was just one of those days. I have no excuse other than being preg…no, I have no excuse. I am just selfish beyond comprehension.  I woke up tired and grumpy. Everything rubbed me the wrong way.  And while I am ecstatic that my husband loves his new job, I found myself pouting like a toddler today thinking, “Jeff this, Jeff that, Jeff’s job, Jeff’s the best, every loves Jeff.  What happend to me?!” How’s that for selfish? Yeah. Jeff was a gem (of course) and listened to me articulate my selfishness, trying to sugar-coat it, but in the end it was spoken and sat out in the middle of the room like a hairy monster showing itself for what it was–really ugly yucky selfishness.  I hate that.

Anyway, we did our best, got to church, and it was seriously like something washed over me when I got in the door.  Of course being loved and welcomed and greeted helped, but as the music began and I started singing, not about myself, but about His name, His greatness, His majesty, in the congregation of my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, I was truly changed.  My eyes filled with tears as I sang, “So I let my words be few. Jesus I am so in love with you” and as we sang, “Your name is strong and mighty tower. Your name, is a shelter like no other. Your name, let the nations sing it louder.  Cause nothing has the power to save, but Your name” the glory of God changed my heart.  HE is so beautiful, so worthy, so gracious, so patient, so longsuffering, so awesome.  He didn’t put me in my place or give me a big spanking, He just brought me in the congregation and poured out His glorious presence…and changed my heart.  ANd then as His Word was taught, that light shining in the dark, nasty crevices of my heart.  The stirring, the repentence, the double-edged sword opening up the places that needed His cleansing. ANd then communion,sharing the Lord’s supper together with the family of Christ, remembering His work, His finished work. There aren’t words.

So tonight I’m just so thankful for the assembling together.  As Jeff pointed out on the way home, you could listen to that message on a CD, you could play those songs on a your stereo. You could eat a cracker and drink a sip of grape juice at home, but there is something so powerful about the gathering together of Christ’s body.  We belong to eachother and we’re blessed when we gather in His name.  So I go to bed changed, thankful, humbled, repentent. God showed me some pretty ugly things in my heart (more on that later), but in such a beautiful gracious way.  There is no rule that says we must go to church, and yes you can experience God having church in a coffee shop alone with your Bible.  But let’s not forsake the gathering together (Heb. 10:24-25).  I’m so thankful for my church, the chuch, our church.  Christ’s church. 

 Right now Pastor Joel is preaching through the book of Proverbs.  Sunday’s message was about friendship.  It’s easy, at a quick glance, to think that that’s a pretty light message, maybe one for the kids in sunday school.  But it’s really gotten me thinking about my life and about my own friends.  Now, by way of clarification I think it’s important to make the distinction between acquaintances, or those we are reaching out to by way of extending the love and grace of Jesus, and true intimate friends.  Jesus was “friends” with tax-collectors, sinners, prostitutes, etc.  But he let only a few into his inner circle of vulnerability–namely Peter, James and John.  While our lives will intesect with hundreds of people, we’re talking today about true friends, those few people who you let into the deep inner recesses of your heart, with whom you can be completely vulnerable and to whom you commit every ounce of yourself to. Those are what I mean by friends. 

A few things stood out to me.

First, our culture is starving for true friendship.  We are an independent, self-relient, and tragically lonely people.  We move often, seldom stay at the same church or job for very long, and our transient nature makes forming deep, life-long friendships extremely difficult.  Pastor Joel asked us to raise our hands if we had a true, deep friendship with someone for more than 20 years who we live near and actually see on a regular basis.  I was so blessed to raise my hand, thinking of my dear friend Janae who has been a friend for 28 years (since my birth!), and who I even now see weekly for playdates as our sons are the same age.  I was amazed to see only a small handful of hands raised in the huge congregation of people.  And I was certainly the youngest to have my hand raised!  Wow.  My parents are surrounded by people they’ve known for decades, as they’ve lived in the same town for 38 years.  There is something about the power of history, of just being somewhere for a long time.  It’s not the norm anymore, but I hope and pray that Jeff and I can stay in our new community for the rest of our days.  That’s our plan, Lord willing.   

Second, we’re fools if we think that our friends don’t heavily influence us (Proverbs 13:20, Proverbs, 12:26, 1 Corinthians 15:33).  We tend to think that we are the ones influencing, especially if we’re leaders. And we might be, but I for one am hugely influenced by my friends.  I remember growing up that I’d inevitably start talking like whoever I was hanging out with.  I think I have a little theatrical blood in my veins (ok, more than a little), and it was always easy for me to pick up on mannerisms and speech habits.  I’m not proud of that fact, but it’s the truth.  In fact, I sometimes wish I was a little less impacted by the people around me, but the reality is, we’re all influenced significantly by our closest friends.  Because of that, we’re wise to be careful about who we choose to let into the closest sphere of our life.  My dad always used to say, “You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can’t pick your friends’ nose.”  Yeah, I know.  That’s just the kind of guy my dad is.  The lesson (if there is one) I suppose is that you can pick who you want your life to be influenced by.  Some of my friends influence me to want to be cuter or have nicer clothes. Some make me want to be a better mommy. Some make me want to love Jesus more.  Some make me want to be more generous and giving.  It’s challenging to think through your list of friends and evaluate what impression they leave you with. It’s even more challenging to think through how you influence those same friends.

Further, as one of my good friends pointed out to me recently, some friends are draining and some are life-giving.  I really believe that a true friend is not a true friend unless they are life-giving to you.  Of course there will be times when they will need you to pour into them or vice versa, but in general a true friend is one who gives you life.  Do you have someone in your life who gives you life? It may be more challenging for us introverts, who tend to be more energized by our time alone. But I definitely have those friends who are life-giving to me. I’m blessed and thankful for them. 

Third, it can actually be the most challenging for people who know a lot of people to have true, close, intimate friends.  Those in ministry are a classic example. Everyone knows you….well, everyone thinks they know you. But it’s hard to carefully choose those very few people with whom you can bare your soul.  It’s too easy to just have dozens of casual friendships, but none that can call you on things, see through your facade, carry the load when you’re weary and heavy-laden. 

So the challenge this week is to consider your friends.  Do you have a true, intimate, close friend, besides your spouse?  If so, is that person challenging you to be more Christlike?  Do they steer you away from gossip or self-pity and toward thankfulness and holiness. Do they allow you to be real, blemishes and all? Do they stand with you when you fall?  Do they give you life or drain yours from you? 

But perhaps most importantly, what kind of a friend are you?  He who has friends must first himself be friendly.  The only way to have this sort of friendship is to be this sort of friend.  Do you hold grudges?  Judge people in your heart?  Are you quick to listen, slow to speak?  Do you encourage gossip or encourage prayer?  Do you truly rejoice when others are better than you, or when their victories exceed your own?  Do you lay aside your own wants and desires for the needs of your friend?  Do you get record of wrongs?  Joel said, “good friends are good forgetters.”  True friends learn how to quickly forget our past mistakes, “cover an offense” (Prov. 17:9), and love us with faith in the road ahead.  A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity (Prov. 17:17).

Let’s be these kind of friends.  And if you are blessed with a few close, intimate friends, tell them so.  Write them a note, call, email, do whatever you need to do to tell them  you’re thankful for their friendship.  Overlook the little offense, see past the weakness.  Jesus no longer calls us servants, but calls us friends.  What a privilege we have!  Let’s do the same for one another.