A Stranger to Holiness

Wrestling With God

Okay, it's 2:30 in the morning and God has woken me up from sound sleep...to wrestle through these thoughts on paper (figuratively speaking, of course...I think if the apostle Paul would have had a computer, I bet he would have blogged too!)

Tonight in our home care groups we discussed very openly about our private wrestlings with God. I couldn't quite find the words to express what all was going through my mind...I was just sort of processing what everyone else was saying. Granted, I probably could have had words and thoughts together had I done the homework. But that is another story!

So as I am lying in bed asleep, I recall my pastor's voice asking, "Is there anyone else who wants to share about their wrestlings with God...?" So in the quiet of the night, I find I am waking up and really thinking this through...and this song gets stuck in my head:

Stranger To Holiness
by Steve Camp


Looks like the boy's in trouble again
Living much too close to the edge of sin
Now he finds himself where he should not have been
Oh God, why is Your peace so hard to find
And the answer to the questions that haunt my mind
Oh Lord, Your ways are not like mine

And it pounds like thunder within in my breast
All the anger of my humanness
And though I call You "Lord" I must confess
I'm a stranger to Your holiness, a stranger to Your holiness

Can we really be what we were meant to be
Jesus' people, living by the Spirit and living free
My heart longs to serve, but wanders so aimlessly
Oh Lord You deserve every part of me

Hear my cry of desperation as I see the wickedness of my ways
You alone are my salvation, and Lord I've learned this one thing to be true
Is that the closer I get to You, I see I'm a stranger (to Your holiness)
Don't wanna be no stranger, and it burns like a fire…

That one line just sticks out to me ....about the answers to the questions that haunt my mind...this is where I wrestle.

Lately I find myself wrestling with the lack of control over my life, and sensing a lack of direction. It seems no sooner do I sense God's direction in my life that I attempt to walk in that way ...that the moment my foot touches the path it seems to dissentigrate and I am left aimless like a leaf blowing in the wind.

I get a sense, though, that is not really an aimless blowing in the wind--but almost a purposeful blowing in the wind. I am not really crazy about the whimsical nature of the wind--but I vaguely remember this passage in John 3 that helps me make sense of this:

John 3:5-8
Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the
kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth
to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised
at my saying, 'You must be born again.' The wind blows wherever it
pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or
where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

...And so it is with everyone born of the Spirit...

I wrestle with this greatly! I am a very task driven person by nature...very goal oriented...and this recent lifestyle of not getting to complete what I start, having my plans have to become about as flexible as an olympic gold medal gymnast is very hard.

This whole whimsical wind thing is very CONTRARY to my general make up...I like my ducks in a row.

I am learning more... day by day, that I am not in control of anything anymore. It leaves me feeling helpless and way too vulnerable...but the reality of it all makes realize that God is in control and I can either learn to be flexible and open to His leadings, or I can dig in my heals and demand my "rights"....well, Daddy didn't raise no FOOL!

Besides, I just posted the blog entry on Passive -Aggressive behavior and the difference between outward obedience and inward obedience of the heart. You can't fully have a "conviction of the heart" until you have had to walk it out and be found faithful in the end.

So as I wrestle, Lord, may you find me faithful...

Dawn

Can we say Passive-Aggressive??

Can't wait to see what his worker evaluation is going to be like! Brad always says "Attitude is EVERYTHING".

God desires our obedience...but this just goes to show that outward obediences does not always reveal the true condition of the heart. God wants our inward obedience of the heart as well as the outward obedience of the flesh.

Just something to ponder....

Dawn

Apples of Gold in Settings of Silver are Words Fitly Spoken

My daughter Laura has a way of saying just the right things at the perfect time to make you feel all warm and bubbly inside.

When she was two years old, she made her dad's day! We were decorating the Christmas tree and asking the kids WHY do we celebrate Christmas? Chris was 4 at that time and Josh was just 6 months old. Chris would quickly fire off the answers before Laura had a chance to respond, which really irritated her! So Brad rattled off more questions and Chris answered before Laura could...so she was determined....she sat fast on her heels and when Brad asked, "So WHO is the King of Kings?" Before Chris could even open his mouth Laura had jumped up and shouted DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You should have seen the look of pure admiration on Laura's face and how quickly Brad was reduced to a puddle of warm fuzzies. He told me that he would correct her theology later, but for that instant he was going to just enjoy the moment.

But today....she made MY day! She and Brad were having a heart to heart talk and I overheard Brad tell her, "You are a wonderful girl, what did I do to deserve a daughter like you?" Laura looked across the room at me and said to Brad, "You married a woman like her".

Just mop me up like melted butter off the floor...!!

Dawn

Medical Humor

A woman called a local hospital. "Hello. Could you connect me to the person who gives information about patients. I'd like to find out if a patient is getting better, doing as expected, or getting worse."

The voice on the other end said, "What is the patient's name and room number?"

"Sarah Finkel, room 302."

"I'll connect you with the nursing station."

"3-A Nursing Station. How can I help You?"

"I'd like to know the condition of Sarah Finkel in room 302."

"Just a moment. Let me look at her records. Mrs. Finkel is doing very well. In fact, she's had two full meals, her blood pressure is fine. She is to be taken off the heart monitor in a couple of hours and, if she continues this improvement, Dr. Cohen is going to send her home Tuesday at noon."

The woman said, "What a relief! Oh, that's fantastic... that's wonderful news!"

The nurse said, "From your enthusiasm, I take it you are a close family member or a very close friend!"

"Neither I'm Sarah Finkel in 302! Nobody here tells me anything!."

Mixed Signals

When Differing Medical Opinions Duke it out in the Prize Fight of the Year!


We've been taught to be good little patients and trust the nice men in the White Lab Coats...after all, you do realize that the M.D. at the end of their name stands for MAJOR DIETY, right?

I don't think so!

One of the most frustrating symptoms of Lyme disease, for me, is the brain fog...the loss of memory...not remembering if I have told you this story before...trying hard to find to remember my child's name...(you laugh...but until you search your brain long and hard and can get NO RECALL on their name, it is just hard to really understand the frustration. )

So one of the worst and cruel fates I think is out there, is when the medical professionals COMPLETELY and TOTALLY disagree with one another...and leave a Lymie to make sense of it all. Can you say MIXED SIGNALS??

Let me give you some visual examples. A friend sent me these photos and all I could do was laugh! Looking at these signs is like sitting through an average doctor's appointment!



If we could get all the doctors in the country that deal with Lyme Disease in one conference room it would be more fun than watching a tag team wrestling match as they all hashed out what is the best way to treat this illness! One says black, the other says white. One says up, the other says down. One says left, the other says right...

This lyme brain fog I am in can't handle any more confusion! Maybe they should all just go to Sunday school and learn a basic principle of letting your YES mean YES and your NO mean NO...

But I guess a trip to Sunday school could put them all out of Jobs if they found out that JESUS heals for FREE.

Dawn

This Thing Called Church

The Heart of Which the Dictionary Cannot Even Begin to Define



Okay, to be fair, let's give the dictionary a fair chance:

church Pronunciation Key (chûrch) n.

1. A building for public, especially Christian worship.
2.often Church

a. The company of all Christians regarded as a spiritual body.
b. A specified Christian denomination: the Presbyterian Church.
c. A congregation.

3. Public divine worship in a church; a religious service: goes to church
at Christmas and Easter.

4. The clerical profession; clergy.

5. Ecclesiastical power as distinguished from the secular: the separation of
church and state.

Do you feel enlightened yet?
Me neither....

I've been thinking a lot lately about a long time friendship of mine, almost 19 years in the making, that has completely been derailed by the issue of "church".

The sad part is that both my friend and I are Bible believing Christians...you would think the issue of "church" would be a NON issue...but it is the VERY issue that has sent this friendship into complete chaos and emotional pain on both sides. In the last year we have had little to no communication...at least nothing of substance.

I am looking for a poem I read once that described perfectly what happened in o0ur friendship. If I find it I will post it. It is called "Draw the Circle Again".

In this poem, it showed a new Chrsitian enjoying all the benefits of being newly welcomed into the Family of God. The full expression of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness...etc...then someone got a hold of him and told him to be watchful and aware that not all "Christians" were like "us"...so this person taught the new believer to draw a circle around himself and include fellowship only with those believers who thought like "they" did. So he drew a smaller circle and included fewer people (under the guise of being "likeminded"). Then after a while, this friend taught him that even within this circle there were those who had different ideas and ways of believing and that he should draw the circle smaller again...this repeated several times to even the point that the friend had been drawn out of the circle. Then the poem closes with the Christian man and his wife left in the circle alone...and the man tells his wife, "It looks like it is just you and me...and I am starting to wonder about YOU!"

A few years back, the issue of church became the very point of contention in our friendship. We went round and round about what she felt was an inappropriate expression of church involvement in our family. She felt we gave the church (and activities with our church) too much of our personal family time. And to be fair, I thought she had a lack of proper relationship with a church in the life of their family. We were on complete opposite ends of the balance on this issue.

So this issue of church was a constant source of pressure for us since she felt like a mentor to me. And on many issues she was a great mentor! But on the area of church and life in the Body of Christ, I needed no more authority than the Word of God.

She challenged each and every belief I had...and I just grew weary.

She felt the church should be led by a plurality of leaders, not by a pastor, and especially not by "paid ministerial staff"...that was just bad stewardship of the church's money. Well, my husband was a church staff member...a paid staff member. (I can feel the embers of hell upon me.) We had a PASTOR and we also had a leadership team!...but still, it was completely an abomination to God in her eyes.

Then came the issue of our church BUILDING. I was quickly informed that if we were really a bible believing new testament church, then we would meet in the people's homes. Great! I told her about our home care groups...not good enough. We still had a sinful building keeping us in bondage.

Then there was the issue of worship...now remember, my husband is the Worship Pastor of our church. We were told that true worship is "melodic" and does not have a beat--that is of demonic origin...called a "back beat". So my musically minded husband took me through the hymnal and showed me some of the "demonic" songs with that horrid back beat timing ...Amazing Grace?

Then one summer I wrote a missions training curriculum to use for the kids at church and we did a summer program called "Mission Friends"...but I was quickly called to the carpet about how our church was in error in letting me, as a woman, TEACH. After all ...women are to be silent in the churches (wrote Paul, who traveled with PRISCILLA and Aquilla who both taught (the man) Apollos...).

I will spare the gruesome details of what happened when I became to ill to continue homeschooling and we put our kids in school.

The friendship was just getting to be mentally and spiritually exhausting. Good grief, all I wanted to do was be a part of a local body of believers and have a place to call my church home! And 14 of those 19 years of friendship, this was the DAILY DIET of "fellowship" between us.

Who would ever of thought that our beliefs about CHURCH would cause such controvery?

So I don't know what concept you have of church...but for our family, church is so much more than a BUILDING...it is the heart of relating to Christ through the individual expressions of his body (ie, his church).
Church is for training (regardless of building or location)...church is the people...who train one one another, disciple one another, and serve one another so that we can go into all the world and make more disciples and reach a lost and dying world for Christ. Our Church Family is often closer to us than blood relatives.

Our relationship with our church family is more real than the air we breathe. It is not just a puch card we check off to feel better and say that we showed up for Christmas and Easter...it is about relationship. It is holding the hand of someone on their death bed. It is helping a mom with a critically ill child. It is celebrating with a newly wed couple. Or standing along side of a single mother...and assuring her she is not alone and she has FAMILY because we are a church--in every sense of the word. It is truly poetry in motion.

I feel really sad for the people who will never experience this kind of relationship with Christ--simply because it may inconvenience their family time. Brad and I spend a great amount of time explaining to our kids that though we have the same blood and DNA coursing through our veins, there is a family that is even more stronger than that...the family of God and we make sure we have integrated them into the greater family than merely just blood relatives. The church is made up of fallable people. I should know...I am one! But even with bumps and warts and all...the people that make up the body of Christ are worth the effort!

Even my friend of 19 years who drew me out of her circle...

Dawn

Kodak Moments

Building Memories to Last a lifetime


Okay...that sounds like a cheezy commercial doesn't it! But every family has those moments...you know the ones...the ones that send you leaping over furniture to get the camera!

Today we had one of those moments! I couldn't exactly capture the heart of the moment because the photos blurred everytime Starbuck jumped...but these may give you the jest of the moment. Laura decided to blow some bubbles to entertain herself. Starbuck...our "emotionally needy" dog sees these "aliens" (ie, BUBBLES) attacking HIS GIRL and goes into all out war to protect Laura's honor from the invaders!

No sooner had the bubbles entered his reach than he jumped, danced and twirled until he killed each foe!



















So after nearling tripping over the chair to reach my camera and snapping these, I went to save them on my computer. I actually have a folder for KODAK MOMENTS!

I ran across a photo from 2 Christmases ago. In this photo our family was sitting at the table after dinner just talking and sharing stories. We had a candle on the table burning. Josh left the table and returned with a bag of mini marshmallows and some little h'our dourve spears and just began roasting marshmallows over our candle...it started a new family tradition in our house! So we shared family stories and roasted mini marshmallows over a candle...truly a kodak moment!


I hope that we will always be able to capture these "kodak moments"...it just seems like yesterday our children were born...now we have teenagers in the house!

Watching them grow has made me cherish my camera more and more each passing day!

So quit reading my blog and go make some kodak moments of your own!

Those precious children will be grown and gone before you know it!

Love, Dawn

We Shall Always Be With the Lord...

So Comfort One Another With These Words

This is what it means to be held
How it feels, when the sacred
is torn from your life
And you survive...
This is what it is to be loved
and to know
That the promise was that when everything fell
We'd be held....

~Natalie Grant "Held"

Anyone who has experienced the loss of a loved one knows what it truly means to be torn between two worlds...our earthly existence and our Heavenly promise. If our lost loved one's were followers of Christ, we have the blessed hope of that Heavenly promise that one day we will all be with the Lord...and we are to comfort one another with those words.

One of my favorite songs we sing in church is Blessed Be the Name of the Lord...taken from the story in Job. Much controvery is spoken over this song, mostly in my opinion, by those who truly don't understand the passage of scripture. I heard a preacher once give a message on this passage and he said "The Lord gives and he NEVER takes away!" But that is in stark contrast to the Bible passage. "The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

I especially love the verse in the song, "every blessing you pour out, I'll turn back to praise."

This part of the song really made me search my heart in the midst of a grief season of losing 7 babies a few years back. The Lord specifically says that children are a gift from the Lord. They are an unmitigated gift. We do nothing to deserve them. They are gifts from His hand to our families. But what happens when that "gift" does not come like we expect it to? Is that precious life any less a gift? I WRESTLED long and hard over this!! How could losing a pregnancy, or having to bury a baby still be a blessing?

It was during these numerous losses that I had come to terms with the eternal.

It was not an easy process, but in the end, years later, I can look at each of those children that the Lord gave us, and know that their earthly purpose was complete (much to my heart ache) but the plan and purpose that God created them for, from the foundations of the world, was an eternal purpose.

I have 7 children in Heaven who are worshipping with the angels, and the Saints who have gone before us, daily crying out, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY...is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come!" Now this may not come as no suprise to you, being that Brad is their father...this act of worshipping...I think it is genetic! But I had to come to grips with the fact that if children are a gift from God, they are gift, no matter what the outcome....so that song really ministered to me during those times of loss. I had to bow my knee before a Holy God and say YOUR WILL, NOT MINE!

In time I came to look at each child as a gift, regardless of their early departure...and in the process of a grieving heart I was able to cry out, "He gives and takes away...but my heart will choose to stay...BLESSED BE THE NAME OF THE LORD!"

So, why am I bringing all of this up now?? So many years after the fact??

This morning my pastor was teaching on healing and death and he referenced the verse from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

But we do not want you to be uninformed, bretheren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not
precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet with the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

Therefore comfort one another with these words.

As pastor read those words, it occurred to me that the anniversary of my twins funeral just passed...and this year it almost slipped my mind. I have come a long way from being consumed with the grief. It is not that I have forgotten their precious lives...never will...but all I could think of today was just how COMFORTING those words really are, now that the grief is not so fresh.

My heart is torn between two worlds. To see the Lord face to face, and to worship Him along side of my children who have gone before me...really is comforting to my heart! But the desire to stay earthbound and married to Brad...and to watch my children grow and mature in their faith, to see them get married and have children of their own...well, that is comforting too!

My twins Jeremiah Daniel and Josiah David would be 5 years old...and though their arrival was not as we hoped, I praise God with a grateful heart for the short time that He blessed us with their presence.

For every blessing You pour out,

I'll turn back to praise!

Thank you Lord, for the time we had with them!

Love, Dawn

You can view my Twins Memorial Site at the following link:
http://www.blessedarrows.org/memorialservice.htm