Blogging to Bless

“Because I am not your servant, that’s why!” I angrily told Colette one day after she claimed “convenient dependence,” as I like to call it, when she wanted help with something she was quite capable of doing on her own.  She has this handy knack of falling to the floor in helpless despair at the request of the simplest task like putting on her shoes.  Suddenly my totally independent when-she-wants-to-be 3 year old, needs Mommy’s help at the most inopportune time.  But my response that day struck me in a way that has made me never repeat it again.
 
Am I not her servant?  And my husband’s?  And yours too?  And why should I resent so much this blessing of position that God has given me.  Not every woman has the opportunity to serve a husband or children.
 
Please, don’t misunderstand me.  I am an advocate for raising children who are healthfully independent.  I take opportunity in reinforcing to Colette during her moments of Mommy-inherited stubbornness that I only ask because she is capable of doing or learning.  There have been days of half-hour long silent battles (on my part- she compensates for me in the noise department) where Mommy refuses to put her socks on for her.  But to retaliate by claiming not to be her servant is simply a lie.  A mother is in service to her children and to deny that does the child a disservice.

There is a certain mundaneness to motherhood that wears on the soul- the spilled cup of milk on the freshly mopped floor, the next meal already being planned for as you are cleaning up the last one, the battle that comes with every request to pick up toys, the hourly need for a reminder that there is a better way to ask for help and a gentler way to treat your sister.  Too often I am disappointed by the lack of glamour in what I do.

It is not that I am looking for a constant thank you and heartfelt appreciation.  What I lack is actually self-recognition for the good that I do.  As a Christian, I have always struggled with serving God in the small things.  I tend to deem those in blatant need (poor, starving, ailing) as the ones I am to serve, forgetting that God places in front of me everyday opportunity to serve Him in a way that may go unnoticed by the rest of the world.  If I fail Him in these opportunities, I will also miss the opportunity to serve in a grander way.  “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much…” Luke 16:10

God entrusts me everyday with my children and my husband and those I encounter.  If I take lightly my service to them, how then can I expect to serve the hungry, the poor and the ailing?  If I have failed to replicate the love of Christ to my children and my husband, my love for others will fail.  1 Timothy 5:8 says that “if anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

Now, I do believe we can become dangerously over-committed to our households.  If I shirk every opportunity to serve someone in love at the justification that my family needs me first, then I fail to show them an active love in Christ.  I also risk becoming lazy in my service to Christ and his Kingdom, when my clean kitchen floor becomes more important than my neighbor who needs some loving comforts in a time of need.

It is a struggle to feel like I am doing something overtly “christian” when I am wiping someone’s bum (forgive me) for the tenth time in a day.  But if I were to deny my service to my children, I could not stand a faithful witness to them of God’s love for them.  We all face the mundane in our world and it is easy to get caught up in the complacency of what needs to be done.  It is even easier to forget that in all we do, we are to do it in service to the Lord.

One day while checking out at Kroger, the cashier launched into a story about how she was in need of a winter coat and stumbled upon the perfect one at a Salvation Army.  I grew uncomfortable at the line behind me as she told me the coat was made for her- the perfect color and fit!  “Isn’t the Lord good?” she proclaimed.  I nodded.  She went on to tell me how He supplies our every need when we are faithful to Him.  And then she told me about her church.  I had never seen her before.  I have never seen her again.  This was years ago.  But I know her name was Jacqueline and I will always remember her as one who remembered to serve her Lord even as a cashier at Kroger.

As we go about our day, we should remember to accept our position as servants, no matter what title this world has given us.  We all have an opportunity to lovingly serve others in the manner that Jesus served us.  It requires some humbling and some sacrifice, but we gain much from these small opportunities.

On my last blog entry I received a comment from an anonymous reader who saw my post as evidence of my being “true to my faith.”  In the open discussion that we had it was stated that I was not hypocritical because I willingly admitted that I had faults.  The comment has lead to much round the clock thought for me.  So much in one comment has left me with enough material for a series of blogging, which is why I encourage you to share your thoughts as this reader did.

So what have I been thinking?  Truthfully, it has been how much of a hypocrite I am and how much we all are.  It seems parenting has caused me to walk the path of hypocrisy more frequently.  I suppose it is because I see so much potential in my children to be better than I am.  I try to encourage them to make better decisions than I did and do.  If they do what I tell them to do, and not watch what I do, they will be fine.  Even now I see the failure looming ahead in that philosophy.

Colette, my 3 1/2 year old, seems to be the world’s slowest child, born of an admittedly impatient mother, who had prayed for years that God grant her the gift of patience.  His answer to my prayer?  Colette, an opportunity to exercise patience on a very regular basis.  When Colette steps in a doorway she must observe from the doorway the entire room before taking another step.  She is unaware that the door is being held by my foot as I juggle grocery bags and a 20 pound child in my other arm, my purse sliding down my arm and catching on the doorknob.  I shout, “Move!  Move!”  Sometimes I have to nudge her with the knee of my free leg.  She is always baffled by this and proclaims, “I am!”  It’s no wonder at lunch she taps the table impatiently and whines, “I don’t have a drink yet!”  Half of her lunch is gone and I have not even prepared mine as I say, “Mommy’s working on it!  You need to be patient!”  It’s ugly, I know.

Colette has not learned patience from me.  I have failed her in becoming better than myself in that area and there are so many others.  I want her to be patient.  We talk about the virtues of being patient, but they are the words of a hypocrite.  On the days that I am more conscious, I make apologies to her for being impatient, or forewarn her when Mommy is getting impatient with some of her antics.  But most days I think I find my demands reasonable in my mind.

A hypocrite is a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs and feelings.  I am not saving myself the hypocrite label by stating or embracing my faults.  If I know those faults to be bad and I believe I should be living otherwise, yet continue to succumb to that fault, I am a hypocrite.  I am a hypocrite.  Aren’t we all?

I think the heart of the matter of hypocrisy is when does it take from the truth?  For instance, if someone warns you to never start smoking as it is an awful habit; dangerous to your health, expensive and addictive, as they light up their Marlboro, does it at all negate what was just stated?  A truth was spoken that can’t be denied.  It is dangerous to your health, expensive in almost every scenario, and extremely addictive.  Perhaps the effect of that truth has been diminished to a degree, but the truth about smoking still stands.

So it is with the truths of Christianity when we warn against the dangers of greed as we hold back on helping those in need and shake our fist in the face of hate and forget to look in the mirror at our inability to love our neighbor as ourself.  We know these things to be true, but if we preach it and do not live it, the weight of the truth is lost.  The truth itself remains, but our effect is diminished.  We can not preach the truth of Christ and lead unbelievers to Him, by living hate.  But the truth of Christ and everyone’s need for Him still stands, even in our hypocrisy.  

I have been thinking a lot about Christianity and how it is, in my experience, the most oft-labeled religion of hypocrisy.  Why is that?  There is no single man who ever followed any religion to perfection (aside from Jesus Christ and that’s another whole series of blog entries).  So why do Christians get written off as hypocrites so often?  The answer I searched for is what delayed this blog entry because it took me a long time to reason it out.  I hope that my thoughts on this will generate additional thoughts on your part as I do not claim to know the answer, but this is what I figured.

I thought about Paul a lot.  Was he not the first self-proclaimed Christian hypocrite?  “I do not understand what I do.  For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.”  Romans 7:15  So from the start, have we Christians been doomed to hypocrisy?  Paul was stating what we all struggle with Christian or not.  Just ask anyone who has ever dieted.  They do not really want to eat that piece of cheesecake, so why do they?  It is a battle of temptation and we sinners face it everyday.

I think that Christians are labeled hypocrites because we firmly proclaim our inheritance in Heaven in the midst of our very visible sin.  To the non-believing world, a world that strives for equality and justice, the hypocrisy seems so evident.  We don’t deserve Heaven!  We are adulterers, murderers, cheaters, and liars that want to lead the lost to our God.  To the non-believer we are taking another puff of our sin and blowing out smoke as we proclaim the way to Heaven.  They have already stopped listening before we get to Jesus.  Our world has taught us that we get what we deserve, so when we proclaim Heaven, it is apparent that something doesn’t mesh.

It is tough being a Christian.  I don’t want to deny my sin, but I don’t want to embrace it.  I want to fight the good fight for the battle against the temptations of this world that await me every morning.  But it is not just an internal battle, but a battle against what the rest of the world views me as.  In order to point them to Christ, I have to be clear in accepting my ever-present need for Him.  It is easy for me to tell you that I am a sinner, because it is the only way Christ makes sense.  If I wasn’t a sinner, I wouldn’t need Him.  We are all hypocrites in need of saving everyday.

This is a post I made on Facebook a couple of months ago, so some of you have already seen it, but I think it is a valuable lesson and reminder to us all of how lucky we are.

Five years ago today the weather was quite different than this rainy day we are experiencing.  It was a Friday, bright and sunny.  I remember driving to work with the windows down and good music on the radio, looking forward to some rest and relaxation that Labor Day weekend.  It was only natural that Craig would be out on his motorcycle in such nice weather, as it was one of the things he loved most in life.

Now, I’m not sure how much this blog entry might bless the hearts of those that did not know him, but today I write for those who are remembering Craig.  He was my husband’s best friend since kindergarten and became one of my closest friends as well.  It was an honor that Craig served as the Best Man in our wedding.  Craig was just a great guy, the kind of friend that wives want their husbands to have.  I didn’t have to worry about what Jon was doing when he was out with Craig- it was always clean-cut fun.

One of the things I most enjoyed about Craig was the boyish joy he and my husband shared together.  They were both RC (radio-controlled) car enthusiasts with a competitive nature that got quite expensive.  They spent many Saturday mornings filling up on a large breakfast at my apartment and then heading off to race on a dirt track.  There is something really sweet about grown men on a dirty track playing with… well… toys, so I often spent my Saturday mornings there watching them.

Craig was raised Catholic, but as many youths do, he had fallen away from church attendance and teachings.  Meanwhile, Jon and I were exploring deeper into sharing our Christian faith.  We had started a Bible Study that we held in our apartment every Wednesday evening, with the attraction of a home-cooked meal, to make inviting friends easier.  We had never invited Craig.  So often I have found that I have doubted God’s capabilities of reaching out to hearts that are so much more willing to hear than I have thought them to be.

One Wednesday as several of us were just sitting down to dinner, one of the attendants, Nikki, received a phone call from Craig.  She told him she was having dinner at our house and that he should come over.  She never mentioned a Bible Study.  I panicked that Craig was going to feel “tricked” into coming to a Bible study and would feel uneasy, yet obligated to stay.  At my urging, Nikki called him back and “warned” him of what he was walking into.  By the time she had called him back, he was already in the parking lot, undoubtedly because free food was being offered.

He stayed for Bible study and made no indication of being uncomfortable.  He participated a lot in the discussion, with many objections.  It was clear that Craig had been struggling with the truths of the Bible and was wondering if it could be the infallible word of God.  When he left, Jon and I prayed for him and that God would wipe away his doubts and renew his faith.  The following week we apprehensively invited him and he came.  Craig was entirely different this time, even proclaiming at one point, “That’s the cool thing about the Bible!”

From that time on, Craig regularly attended our Bible study and we had the pleasure of watching his faith grow so much in that little time.  I remember him telling me, “Katie, I’m so happy now.”

I do not know why five years ago today Craig was in a motorcycle accident that took his life.  I do know why he called Nikki that night of our Bible study.  Simply put, I had a lot of plans for Craig that God did not.  I had planned on Craig marrying a wonderful girl that I would approve of, having children that would grow up with mine, and my children adoring him as much as I did.  God’s plan for Craig that night was to renew his faith and give us all an assurance of where he is today, in the loving arms of His God.  If Craig had died before attending our Bible study my pain today would be much different.  I would not have this certainty of Craig smiling down on us as we remember him today and always, and looking forward to the day when we are reunited in Heaven.        

When filled with the enthusiasm that most new Christians find bubbling inside themselves, I also found myself set on a misconception that is also common in the recently saved.  I thought that my career had to be overtly Christian.  I did not consider that I could be overtly Christian in any field, giving me opportunity to shed light in the darkness.
In fact, I did not realize that at my current job at the time, I was doing just that.  I was the only Christian among many mockers of my faith.  Some of my coworkers may have associated with the label of Christianity, but fought against the very basic principles.  The job was extremely stressful and left me unfulfilled.  I thought it was obvious that now that I had embraced my faith as a Christian, I needed to move on to a position with “Christian” in the title- pastor, teacher, youth worker, etc.
Meanwhile God was giving me many opportunities to witness to those that I worked with: a young married girl committing adultery, a Jewish man who was intrigued by christianity but could “never become one, because I’m Jewish!,” and a struggling single mom who insisted that if she walked into a church “the place would set fire.”  All approached me because in my quiet witness of reading my Bible every lunch hour, they saw a sense of peace that beckoned to them.  Though God used me in that environment, I continued seeking employment elsewhere in the slim-pickings of ministry for someone who did not have a degree.  I was serving my church as a volunteer leading the Senior High Youth in Bible studies and was writing the studies on my own.
When I stumbled upon a freelance position in the Lutheran Witness Magazine for a writer to contribute to lessons used in Sunday School, I was certain the position was meant for me.  My simple thought was because this is what I wanted to do, it was what God wanted me to do.  I can not express to you how certain of this I was.  I worked diligently on the application and writing samples and ignored some of the blatant difficulties facing the position.  It required a week long training session in St. Louis the week I would be getting married.  Details I was faithful God could work out!  (Having hindsight of the week pre-wedding, this really makes me giggle now!)
I was more than crushed when I received the letter declining my application.  I was angry!  I believe it was the only time that I was willing to admit I was angry at God.  I had a miserable day at work that day and driving home I remember screaming, “What do you want from me?!”  I told Him how I was trying to serve Him and He wouldn’t let me.  I asked why He would dangle this position in my face and let me get my hopes up if He never intended me to work in that capacity.  I asked if I wasn’t good enough to serve Him.  And sadly, even questioned if He was there.  I was at the lowest of lows.  The sorrow was a weight on my chest.  It felt much like an unrequited love.  I was simply trying to love God and serve Him and I felt like He didn’t want me to.
When I got home, I grabbed my mail and leafed through for some sort of distraction from my misery.  I was mildly pacified when I came upon a postcard from my friend who was visiting Germany at the time.  I read the back without taking note of the front.  It was very typical “having fun, wish you were here” verbiage, but it made me smile.  However, as I flipped the card over to view the picture, I was thoroughly annoyed to see that someone had written in German all over the front of the postcard.  In my sour mood, I grumbled about the indecency of people and wondered how someone could be so careless. The nerve, really!  But at the bottom of the paragraph of gibberish I saw, “Jer. 29:11.”  A Bible verse?
It was somewhat with fear and skepticism that I opened my Bible and turned to Jeremiah.  I had just finished berating my God- What kind of message could He have for me?
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  I will be found by you,” declares the Lord…”
I sobbed.  And I wondered how those words came to be on that postcard.  I felt the very hand of God upon it.  When my friend returned from Germany, I asked if she had written something on the postcard and she explained that her boyfriend did.  She said they had been touring an old church and Joe had opened up a Bible and copied it down because he thought, “It looked neat.”  He had no idea what he was copying.  But God did.
The message that God had for me that day was a call to trust Him and a reminder that I was serving Him right where He wanted me to be.
A wise friend once said to me that we should be able to put “Christian” in front of any one of our titles- a christian mother, a christian daughter, a christian receptionist, a christian cashier.  We can not all be pastors or youth workers or missionaries because God needs christian administrative assistants, christian landscapers, and christian teachers to reach out to an unsaved world, too.  
  

As a teenager and young adult, I found most of my emotions, actions, and thoughts wrapped around the topic of finding true love.  Like so many girls, I sacrificed standards and morals to find “the one.”  I remember feeling like searching for a good, Christian man was setting the bar too high and would only lead to disappointment.  (I am sure a lot of my reservations in this area was an unwillingness to expose my lack of understanding of my own faith.)  So often I dated troubled men thinking that if I could offer them a life of change they would be forever indebted to me with their love.  And yet my relationships were always missing that growth that only a Christian relationship can experience- the bonding of your love for  Jesus and His work in you as an individual and as a couple.  

The next couple of blog entries are a focus on particular incidents that shaped me as a Christian.  I was raised in a Christian household.  We attended church every Sunday.  Never was there a point where I denied Christianity as my faith, yet so often, unrecognizable to me at the time, my faith faltered in understanding what God really meant to me and what a relationship with Him could offer.

My cousin Matthew was born with a rare genetic disease.  He was a couple of years older than me and the first couple years of his life started off relatively normal.  He achieved many of the same milestones as “normal” kids- walking and talking, etc.  To be truthful, I don’t remember a lot of that time with Matt, except how much I loved him.  We lived far apart and didn’t get to see each other often, but I “wrote” him letters everyday, before I could even write.  And I drew him pictures, all of which decorated his bedroom walls.  In my adolescence I told people I would marry him one day.  I loved him as much as a little kid could possibly love anyone.

As he grew older, Matt’s differences started setting him apart.  He lost the ability to talk and walk, among other things.  He became quite incapable of doing anything.  It was at this point when my parents and others prepared me for what was inevitable with Matt’s disease.  Most of the afflicted children would not live past the age of thirteen.  I would sit in church and hear the miracles that Jesus performed and knew with certainty that the same could happen for Matthew, but I didn’t know why it wasn’t happening.  I grew frustrated with my family, thinking that their lack of faith was what held Matt back.  With each time Matt  faced a threatening illness, I would pray fervently for Matt to be healed and beg that my life be taken in place of his.  And Matt would pull through, at least momentarily.  I felt like God was holding out on a miracle that would happen eventually, but the pattern continued for years.  Matt had many years beyond his life expectancy, but he was progressively getting worse.  I feared how I would survive if Matt were to die, and mostly I feared how I would ever face God if he were to take Matt from me.

One Christmas, while in highschool, I started reading Chicken Soup for the Soul – a book of collective inspirational true stories.  I read a story of a mother whose two year old child suffered from cancer and the doctors informed her that she would soon be saying good bye to her child.  The woman denied her Christian faith as her baby’s health struggled, believing that no loving god could allow the suffering of an innocent child.  However, one day she felt compelled to pick up her abandoned Bible and was lead to the story of Abraham and Isaac (Genesis 22).  As she read the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice his only son, she realized the intention of this story.  God asks us to put Him first, above all other loves, and to trust in His goodness.  Abraham understood this as he climbed that mountain and now the woman was beginning to understand what God was asking her to do.  That night she placed her child on a makeshift “altar” in her living room and told God that she was submitting to His will for her child, whatever that might be.  Months later her child was miraculously healed.

Even now, as I tell you this story, years later, I am overcome with the intricacies of these stories and how God wove them together for His glory.  In reading this woman’s story and reflecting on what had always been for me a troubling story of the Bible, I realized what I was being called to do.  I prayed to God so differently that night- no begging, no negotiating.  I submitted to His will for Matthew’s life.  When Matt passed away a month later, I was filled with peace.  I was able to share my story with others at the funeral to help them feel the comfort that I was feeling.  I know that God was so, so patient with me, carrying Matt through each illness, so that I could see God’s plan and love in the midst of it all.  Though I had grown up proclaiming faith in God, it was the first time that I put that faith into action.  

To begin. To begin is not easy for me. I just have a hard time beginning. How formal or informal, what premise, where to start? Once I have gotten my feet wet, I am okay, but starting something is often overwhelming.

It is not that I have commitment issues. As a writer you often know the way you want something to end, before you even begin it. Most great stories are written backwards, because it’s really all about the end, isn’t it? The end is the accomplishment. It’s where you sum up what you have been trying to say all along. Every beginning has an intent- the nails and wood with a tree house in mind, a difficult journey through school with a successful career ahead, a babbling blog with some hope of inspiration.

The greatest author of all time knew the end before bringing the beginning into fruition. From Isaiah Chapter 46 verse 10 He tells us, “I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.” In the beginning His intent was for you and for me. He authored our lives before they began. And He will accomplish with them all that He intends.

Which leads me to this beginning. A beginning that has been developing for a long time, if only in my mind. But even as a young child I have searched for ways to serve Him through my writings. This is the humble beginnings of my intent to bring glory to the Author and Perfecter of our lives by blessing and inspiring those that read on from here. Certainly I do not think I am one of the best writers around, but I know that God has blessed me with this desire to serve Him in this manner for a reason. Maybe you are that reason. If it is but for one person I write, I do not write in vain.

Truthfully, my thoughts just come out much better on paper than in person. I love the written word. It is very committal. When I read my old journals, I often cringe, but there is no taking back who I was at that moment in time, though I would like my memory to serve me differently. A word spoken can oft be forgotten, but the written word allows you to revisit. Surely it can be lost, erased, deleted, burned or buried, but the commitment that comes when you pick up a pen (or a laptop)… well, each word to me is like my signature with my seal of approval.

And that is just what I love about God’s Word. It is His commitment to us with His signature. Each word written with intent and purpose. I believe there is not a careless word in the Bible. And because I believe that, I know that I am a new creation in Christ, a new beginning that is being refined every day. My trials and tribulations along with my triumphs are all in His plan, created from the beginning. This blog is my testimony of confidence in that truth.