What Role Am I Going to Play?

"His death is not what I would have chosen and I still don't understand."

The quote above is from a reflection I wrote on Bobby's birthday last year. Recently, I've given out the address to Bobby's Memorial page on Facebook to some ladies at work. One has a son who's in a drug addiction and she's just looking for help and support. The others have young teenage boys and my experience of loss is their wost nightmare.

As the conversation unfolded during lunch, my thoughts went something like this:
" Good grief!!! God, how can I not say something? BUT I only have 30 minutes to eat and go to the bathroom and you want me to talk about my loss now??? What if I start crying? I have to go back to class. You know the kids will ask what's the matter, don't you? I do have a to come back tomorrow!!!!"

I did choose to enter into the conversation and share part of my story with those precious women. Being in that place at that time was God's plan for my life in that moment. I had a choice to allow my story to be used for His glory and their and my good or I could be silent but more "comfortable" as I ate my lunch and went about my day. God so gently reminded me that He doesn't waste anything, not even painful, difficult things. This is the quote He reminded me of:

We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given.- Jerry Sittser

I'm still learning how to respond to the role of someone who has lost a child without letting it define me. Life is the point. Even in Bobby's death, life is still the point. If sharing parts of his story leads others to life that's pretty cool!!!! His death is still not what I would have chosen but I do understand just a little better how God can use Bobby's death to share HIS LIFE with others.

As I live this life that He has given me, I continue to look for opportunities to share His life and hope with those in my world.

Considering-Verse III

Considering seems to be this on-going song. At least that 's the way it's seemed since 2005 when God gave first put the words in my heart. What I think to be the final verse came to me as I was preparing a talk for the ladies retreat at my church. The topic I was to speak on was experiencing God's love through pain. Well, in order to go there, I had to go back in time and think on how I'd actually experienced God's love through pain. This was a somewhat painful task even though I could clearly see God's hand in the circumstances of my life. I could see God's faithfulness through some difficult things but I found myself wondering about the tomorrows of my life. My "worry flesh" began to kick in and familiar words that used to paralize me began running through my head. That's when I needed to replace lies with truth. At that moment, God didn't give me a scripture but another verse to Considering. He's funny like that. He speaks to me in a way that He knows I can receive His truth in a given moment. I know sometimes I'm to busy trying to figure things out on my own but in those moments when I'm quiet before Him, He is faithful to show me His truth.

Considering-Verse III-Written in April 2009

Oh, Lord you have been faithful
As I’ve traveled down this road.
As I look toward tomorrow,
I sometimes wonder what it holds.
Then I hear you gently whisper
I am with you in the now
And whatever comes tomorrow
You will see my grace poured out.

Chorus: amended in April 2009
Considering all you’ve done for me,
Considering all I know of you,
Lord, I want to let you love me
Even though I can’t see you.
Lord, I choose to let you love me
Even when I can’t see you.

None But Jesus

This is a song that God has been using to speak to me lately. It keeps bringing me back to the center. This is my life. I can't wait to start living until this or that happens. This is my everyday,ordinary, God-appointed life. My focus needs to be Him and not my to do list (although I do like my list :) )! I want to make the most of everyday that I have and enjoy each moment whether it's walking the dog or sleeping in or hugging my boy or my man or....... You get the point. "All my delight is in you Lord. All of my hope. All of my strength."

If God Needs Anything From Me, Is it My Weakness?

Today someone shared that they had been reading in 2 Corinthians 12 during their devotional time together as a family. I’m sure you’re familiar with the verses even if you don’t know the reference. It’s the part where Paul is talking about not boasting in anything except his weaknesses. Then she made this statement: “I think this is saying that if God were to ever need anything from us He would want our weakness.” Well, I immediately wrote that down and knew I was going to have to think about that and do a little digging. She didn’t say that God needs something from us but if He did it would probably be our weakness.
Well, I don’t know about you but I don’t like having weaknesses. I don’t want to sit around talking about them over coffee with friends. They are what get in the way of me living a victorious, abundant, life to the full kind of day. I can spend so much time focusing on not walking in fear, for example, that I forget to access the power Christ in me when fear crops up!
Paul, on the other hand, says this: In 2 Cor. 11:30b “If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness.” In 2Cr 12:5- he says “but on my own behalf I will not boast, except in regard to {my} weaknesses.” After asking God several times to remove his “thorn in the flesh” God said no. and this is what else He said: "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." (2 Cor. 12:9)
Paul goes on to say: “Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2:Cor.12:9b-10)
The list of things that Paul is well content with is what I usually want to avoid or pray for God to get me out of. Finally, when I realize that I have to go through “it” (and Him being with me, of course), I say: "Can we please hurry up so I can get on with experiencing the abundant life that you died to give me?!!!!!!"
I wonder what would happen if stopped despising my weaknesses but looked at them as an opportunity for God’s power to show up strong in me. I do have a choice right? About how I choose to look at things? Maybe my weaknesses aren’t keeping me from experiencing HIS life in me but an even greater opportunity for Him to express HIS life through me? I think ya, maybe. I’m going to think some more while I exercise. Before I know it, my boy will be home from school. Maybe we can share a little grace, a little truth and some LIFE together!!!!

Living in the Present Moment...........

What does that look like in the day to day? Living in the present moment not in the past where all the "if only's" dwell. Living in the present moment not in the future where all of the "what if's" live. Neither place sounds very peaceful but rather full of regret or full of fear depending where I choose to hang my hat. Surely there is another choice, right? Yep and it's the only choice that I can do anything about-my choice to live in and experience GOD in each present moment. That is where God IS. He WAS in the past with me and He WILL BE in the future with me but right now and now and now, He is in this present moment with me and with you. He is the "I AM"-what I/we need when we need it. I think victory in the Christian life is being able to experience Christ as my life in each present moment and if I forget who I am in Him or who He is in me, then I can expereince Him even in that as He reminds me of what's true.

Trust is a huge thing for me. If I'm able to experience His sufficiency in each moment will I trust Him more? Good question. I'm still pondering a quote I posted a while back but somehow I think it connects to living in the present moment.

"When I trust deeply that today God is truly with me and holds me safe in a divine embrace, guiding every one of my steps, I can let go of my anxious need to know how tomorrow will look, or what will happen next month or next year." Henri Nouwen

As I experience Him and KNOW His character and His heart toward me, perhaps false beliefs about Him based on past experiences ect. can be replaced by absolute truth that isn't based on circumstances? It certainly seems to be true of my journey so far.

So, can I trust even when it hurts? when the path isn't clear? when I'd rather do it my way? Sure, but only because I can trust Him!!! He is the constant in the ever changing..........always the same. I can experience the one who never changes in my day that is constantly changing as I rest and trust Him in each present moment.

Boy, this sounds way more peaceful than the other choices. I think I'll grab my hat and hang it on the peg of the present moment where God is!!!! How about you?

Pain

At the moment, I'm feeling a profound sense of sadness. I know it has multiple layers. The first contributor is the decline of my mother-in-law's health. John is with her now as decisions are being made regarding her extended care once out of the hospital. The second contributor is the story of a family in my community who is going through a tremendous amount of pain. I don't even know them but I feel their pain. The third contributor is the loss of several older folks within our church family in recent days.

I am rereading a book that was given to me after Bobby's death. In it the author makes this statement:

Pain is a gift, a sure sign that we are alive. Only the dead feel no pain, and that includes the dead people who, though still alive have rejected love and goodness and sorrow for so long that they have lost the ability to feel anything.

One of the biproducts of experiencing tremendous loss is, for me at least, that I feel things very deeply which includes the pain of others. That is both a blessing and a curse of sorts. My losses have not hardend my heart but have made it softer and more tender to the needs of others. As Jerry Sittser puts it,"I have been enlarged by my loss."

That brings up another point in experiencing life which often includes loss at some level.

We do not always have the freedom to choose the roles we must play in life, but we can choose how we are going to play the roles we have been given.

I can choose how I will respond to the circumstances that come my way or that come into the lives of ones I love, or perhaps those I hardly know. I have more thoughts welling up but I'm out of time for now. So, I'll keep pondering as I live today like there is no tomorrow.

You Belong to Me

You run, you hide
As tears fall from your eyes
They fall like snow
From a wounded soul

You hold inside
The hurt of great divide
The hole is starting to get old

So come back to the light
To the love, you will find
It’s been here all along
So come back to the start
And you’ll find in your heart
That you always belonged
To me

Just take the rope
I won’t let it go
Give in
We can start again


I’m life, I’m hope
And I’m ready to explode
With how bad I want you back home


You're my daughter

You're my son

You're the one I long to love

You've heard I chose to die

Do you know you're the reason why?

So come back to the light
To the love, you will find
It’s been here all along
So come back to the start
And you’ll find in your heart
That you always belonged
To me

I'm facilitating a class based on the book Problems, God's Presence and Prayer. It's interesting how God has allowed things to come across my path that relate to how we as believers deal with our pain especially in relationship to God. From songs to videos to testimonies of others, our view of God is often affected by what we are experiencing in our lives (our circumstances).
At their very core, our problems are designed to drive us to God. Yet often I find, from my own life experience and that of others, that instead we run, we hide, we numb we…………..anything to keep us from experiencing the pain that our circumstances can bring.


Even still, God is continually calling us to experience Him right in the middle of whatever is going on. I think the words in this song say it perfectly.


I’m life,

I’m hope

And I’m ready to explode

With how bad I want you back home


So come back to the light

To the love, you will find

It’s been here all along So come back to the start

And you’ll find in your heart

That you always belonged

To me


I want to experience him as LIFE and HOPE right where I am. How about you?