Come On In, The Water's Fine

Hey Reader!

Although blogging has been the least of my concerns for the last couple of years, the tug has gotten stronger and has felt more urgent in these last few weeks. So today, I obey.

Oh, I've been journaling. This time not in my tattered blue or red notebook, but in a sleek hard-backed, spiral bound, big girl notebook. It has the kind of paper that makes a girl want a high quality pen and her best penmanship. There are no hard-written pen holes or snot-n-tear stains on any of the pages. I've been more-or-less polite in most of my entries. That is not to say content is any less messy, but I am simmering down a little in my relationship with Jesus and in my belief that God, my Father in heaven, is ALWAYS good, even when life's circumstances aren't. (By-the-way, this is a spoiler alert and a bit off tonight's topic, but despite what you feel, fear really is a waste of time and energy. You're welcome, carry on...)

If you read anything I've written, you know by now that the story of Moses and the Israelites- their deliverance from Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, the wandering, the trusting, the not trusting, the faithfulness of God, the unfaithfulness of man- has been the active theme that the Lord has used to reveal Himself to me. If you missed it, I can tell you it all started when I bitterly told God that I was sick of the "Churchianity" and the ridiculous "stained glass masquerade" I was accustomed to participating in for basically my whole life.  I had found that the burden of out-of-context rules of American Church didn't work to better myself, my relationships, or my life. I told Him that if He is who He says He is, He'd have to come get me and I wanted nothing less than a Red Sea parting of my own. I was sick of head knowledge and rhetoric and cliche and hollow platitudes. I wanted gut-level, instinctual, life-altering belief, or nothing.

Interestingly, God didn't start with a big fat sea-parting miracle. He started with gentle, undeniable, undeserved, pursuit of my heart. He used hushed-tones of mercy and grace which oozed over my then rebellious lifestyle. During that time, multiple lessons were learned through the circumstances of Moses and his people- if you care to read about those, feel free to browse my other blog posts.

Alrighty then, so life moved on. Calendar pages changed, kids got taller than me, the family grew, then shrunk... the lessons of Moses were never far out of mind. Busyness abounded. I forgot, then remembered, then forgot and was forced to remember "Be Still" again and again. Because of my personality, I am convinced it is going to be a never ending reminder to rely on my WEAKNESS, which is stillness, so that the Lord will be my STRENGTH. I digress, but through it all I found myself once again, uncomfortable, and in the direct heat of the refiners fire- August 2015.

Because of those discomforts and through a myriad of specific-to-me messages from the Holy Spirit, I have been challenged to assess the depth and specificity of my prayer life. As usual, themes are carried through from situation to situation, from year to year. Again, August 2015 being no different,  a collection of prayer themed verses wash over me:

James 1:2-8 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and unstable in all they do.

Matthew 7:7-11 "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!" 

The depth of those verses is not lost on me. I presume a skilled teacher could spend a month of Sundays digesting all that is packed in each of those words. I am not that guy. What trips me up this time around is the repetitive word "ask". Cool. I ask. I don't really even doubt, per-say. But, do I AAAAAAAASK? Do I specifically ask for the exact thing I'm hungry for (i.e. bread or fish) or do I just ask to be full somehow, even if it means eating rocks and snakes?  Truly, the answer is no. I am lazy. I say global things like "help me in this", "fix that however you want, but only IF you want to fix it Lord". For my whole life, my prayer life has been general, relatively dispassionate, saucer-deep, and with mild reservations. I haven't looked for the miraculous parting of the sea, because I haven't been so bold as to ask my Father for it directly, therefore I'm rarely at risk for disappointment... or for miracles for that matter.

Are you still with me? Okay, so to remedy my situation I, with a help of a 30 chapter book, spent the last month diligently, daily, boldly, specifically, asking for Red Sea parting, dry land crossing, and deliverance from my enemy (we'll call that ugly beast "Egypt" for today). Guess what?! Circumstances are the same, Egypt still hates me and would LOVE to devour, distract, disable, or destroy me, yet I am safely pitching my tent every day and night this month on dry ground! Make no mistake, Egypt has not been destroyed with the same drowning finality of the Egyptians in the story, yet. A night watch will still be required, but I KNOW now that "He keeps those in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Him" (Isaiah 26:3).

So this brings me to the rest of the story- to catch you up to real time. I started reading a new book tonight after work. I kind of liked having this new routine of intentional, structured, placement of my mind on higher things and I figured the 7 or 8 years the book remained marinating in dust, unopened and unread on my shelf was sufficient enough time to give it a whirl. The book is called 'A Quiet Heart' by Carla Jividen Peer and while I can't vouch for more than the first few pages, I think we'll get along just fine. I love the way Carla sums up a life experience I can relate to 100%:

"... I wanted to have mighty exploits so that people could look at me and say, "God is real." He is real, He performs wonders, and he intervenes in our lives. 

The key to doing exploits is knowing God. However, there are two kinds of knowing. There is knowing about which is characterized by information and there is knowing of which is characterized by intimacy. For many years I knew about God. Knowing about God is an academic knowledge that begins with studying the Bible or hearing someone teach the facts and truths of the Bible. But there is a progression of knowing. Knowing of God grows out of knowing about God. Knowing of God is a personal, intimate relationship. The first the of knowledge- the academic is important. The knowledge of God goes deeper; it has to be learned experientially, and it is often costly. " (Emphasis mine.)

Okay, so NOW, in light of the heat and pain of this current refinement and in light of Carla's words, major blocks of "about" knowledge just fell like Tetris blocks into the "of" category- making this Philippians 3:8 verse make sense:

 "Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ." 

Those words are no longer simply memorization fodder, cliche, or worse, ingredient number one in the recipe for major spiritual-frustration and "back-sliding" excuse making (baking?). I no longer feel like the jerk-of-the-world Christian who doesn't crave "Christ alone to the glory of God alone".  Furthermore, I cannot seem to get enough of scripture, Old and New Testament,  where previously crazy sentences such as "All my fountains are in you" and "The Lord is my defender, my deliverer, my strong tower" were nice poetry and frustratingly empty sounding promises.

Through a considerable amount of personal cost in almost every area of my life, along with my willing submission to His plan for me to enter the DEEEEEEEP and scary Red Sea (I can't swim and I'm really more of a hot tub soaking kind of girl), and just a pinch of mustard-seed faith that says "God is ALWAYS good to those who's trust is in Him" (not surprisingly another nod to an afore-mentioned Lamentations 3 theme), I learned this:

God is SO GOOD that He won't force you into the water, He never ceases to invite you in.  We get to choose submission, which is ALWAYS the case with any type of biblical submission. Of course if we don't step into the scary, uncomfortable place, we won't see the walk-on-water, parting-of-an-entire-sea, life-breathed-into-dry-bones, giant-killing, fiery-furnace-surviving, closed-mouthed-hungry-lion, virgin-gives-birth caliber miracles we crave and He is deeply desiring to display to us. I must admit, I'm hooked. As of about two weeks ago, I know what it means to honestly say: I hold nothing on this planet dearer than my hard-won, intimate knowing of my Savior. I think I might have just graduated from warming the bench Coach, "I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead. (Philippians 3:10-11) 

I regret having wasted so many years fearing my part in the obedience/blessing exchange of scripture.  Please pray with me that I don't lose sight of THIS and that I experience my own "resurrection" of sorts...

If Not For Freedom, Then What For?

Well it has only been a solid 18 months since I cracked the curtains for you to view into my world. Don't think I have not wanted to before now, but truthfully the things I processed over the last year and a half were too closely woven with other's stories that weren't mine to tell. Let me briefly catch you up to speed on a few details of my life so that my chatter tonight has a shot at making a lick of sense.

Sometime around the publishing of my last blog post I became engaged, then married, to one of the most intelligent, fascinating, earnest, hard working men I have ever met. He had absolutely no trouble accepting, and wholeheartedly loving, my three Bonus People. In fact, he blessed me with three of his own Bonus People. Even if you're marginal at math, you've probably counted SIX young-uns- with a tally of three boys and three girls. As it stands tonight we have three high schoolers, two middle schoolers and a preschooler. These simple facts alone will possibly reveal a clue as to why I've chosen not to blog in my "down time". I can further explain...

Maybe the best way to put this is that we are a multi-career family. You're probably aware that I own my little booth-rent salon business. My husband is a (semi-retired?) recording artist, high school English teacher, doctoral student, Young Life student ministry leader, theater director, English Mastiff breeder, semi-professional cyclist, non-profit founder, race organizer, online professor, and-something-else-I'm-sure-I've-forgotten...

We have gymnasts, swimmers, wrestlers, basketball players, bike shop employees, track stars, softball players, new drivers, up-and-coming drivers, volleyball hopefuls, trumpet players, saxophonists, clarinetists, choral members and folks that plain just want to be heard from time to time. Between the practices, training, workout plans, concerts, counseling appointments, games, lessons, work schedules, meetings, races, back rubs, occasional broken bones, school dances, first dates, heart breaks, weekend trips, grocery shopping, meals, new puppy litters, car accidents, and more than one devastating loss.... I. Can't. Think. Straight.

That brings me to tonight.

I have chosen to take a hard look at my Be Still directive from 2013, which I also wrote about later that year here. It is quite possible the theme wove it's way into other blog entries, feel free to look. It is a concept I have thought about tattooing on my forehead, except Mom, Dad and Mr. Hill would potentially, strongly, object. It seems that I'm sorta bad at obedience when the seven other people I live with don't have the same convictions and, quite frankly, I've personally lost direction.  In response to all 'o that, and because my auto-immune disorders so kindly reminded me in a catch-your-attention-or-else kind of way, I've chosen to take a little mini sabbatical of sorts to re-organize my priorities and re-balance my skew.

If you're a long time follower of my blog, you'll be happy to know that my thinking has not become over-thinking and my perfectionism is still firmly behind me. I promise I am a MUCH less "stressy" woman to live with, trust me, I do it 24/7 and I have a backstage, all-access pass to me. After a little research, I am pleased to discover that the woman who started this nonsense in 2011 is truly not the woman I am today.

Buuuuuuut, that's not to say I don't still have a few things to address internally:

If I only had one emotion that I was allowed to assign this past 18 months, I would truly say JOY sums it up nicely. I will not type foolish, Pollyanna-esque drivel without first giving you a glimpse of the other side of that coin. Fear, grief, heartache, anger, frustration, exhaustion, and suffering all have made their visits and continue to be the undercurrent emotions that flow with Joy most days. Had you asked me last month I might have minimized Joy and maximized something less accurate. It has never been more true: Nothing worth having, comes without WORK. Before I explain, I think it's vital that I not toss "happy" in the mix of emotions that characterize my time as Mrs. Hill. Although there has certainly been happiness that characterize moments or days, Happy is fickle.  She requires things to be "just so".  No, Joy is my choice and I've fought hard to earn her.

I don't know what is "normal" in terms of how the Lord works His truth through a person to cause genuine, lasting change. However, for me there's always a theme. Sometimes it's a word or a phrase that echoes the silent spaces of my day- at the shampoo sink, in the shower, in the silence of an occasional lonely commute, in the darkness just before drifting off to sleep, as I stir a pot on the stove or take out the trash.... For me, MANY of these words and concepts end up fully circling back to a larger theme: the story of Moses and the Exodus.

The enslaved Israelites, Egypt and the hard-hearted Pharaoh, the plagues, the sea parting, the desert wandering, and the Promised Land, the consequences for disobedience... I mean FOR YEARS, this story is the rich soil that has grown incredible truths for me about the character of God, the power of faith in something, or rather, Someone BIG, hopefulness, hopelessness, provision, grumbling, ungratefulness, thanks, a desire to run headlong back into slavery, fear, harshness, softness, insufficiency, sufficiency, impossibility and the miraculous... oh, and I'm hoping a plethora of yet un-earthed treasures.

There is simply no way, for time's sake and for privacy's sake, to explain the ins and outs of how, but on this day and because of this week, I, with one of my Bonus Daughters (who happens to have declared a desire to be an Egyptologist even prior to hearing the story in Exodus), built a symbolic stone memorial in our desert, just as the wandering Israelites did, to remember that God is GOOD and He moved here. He is at work, He loves us deeply and when I pass here again in my own wanderings, I will remember. Yes, this is why "Joy".  Circumstances are the same as ever, the desert is just as hot and dry, but this time there's a pillar to remember...

Oh Hey! I almost forgot: When I BE STILL, guess what happens?! The Lord actually, truly does the fighting for me, just like He said in Exodus 14:14! It cost me nothing- except the willful wrestling match between trust and fear,  the act of taking rogue thoughts captive and making them obedient to Truth, Nobility, Justice, Purity, Excellence, Love and Praise, then being WILLING to say "whatever you ask, I'll do" to the One who asks for everything I have, am or hope for in my deepest places. Freedom has never felt so free, and if I lose everything I think have, it won't come close to having the power to send me back to the emotional, physical or spiritual slavery of "Egypt" or the bondage of fear or the exhaustion of misplaced "worship".

It is for FREEDOM that Christ has set us FREE. Stand firm therefore, and do not submit yourself again to the yoke of slavery.  Galatians 5:1

I'd love to close this post with a picture, or five, of my little "spiritual" mascot.  He truly represents the last five years of God's work in my life.  He is a promise fulfilled and a complete blessing I can't fully describe.  He's more than a dog, he's my Moses...