The 5 Step -How to Make Love Rock- Program

I Peter 3:8 ..."Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another, be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble."

After Peter finishes his wise guidance on how rulers and master, wives and husbands should treat each other, he gives a very general yet specific charge to the people on how to do it well.  And he says, YES THAT IN CLUDES ALL OF YOU!! So if you are not the most touchy, feely, relational person-guess what all of you means you, and if you are an introvert-YEP you too!  High D personality, you're on the list, stubborn, strong willed, reserved, quiet, manly man, independant....your all in this one, so listen up all of you!  This is what is good and how the body of Christ and intimacy in relationships should work, this is how they will know you are Christians...Love. So do this!
1. Live in harmony- Learn your lover's life song lyrics, sing the same chorus, don't clash your notes, write beautiful music together, find out how to harmonize the differences so they make a pure blend.  Enjoy life's silent pauses together.  Dance and sing the fortes and feel the emotion of the crescendos. Music is happy, live for the happy tune of life!  Know that the finale will take your breath away and leave you standing on your feet to the Orchestrator of life itself
2.  Be sympathetic- The Greek word for this means "unified feelings."  You fit together in your thinking, you feel each others feelings.  You don't have to have the answers but you show up and are there with the one you love in the rejoicing or the mourning.  (Guys you DON"T have to fix us!!!!)
3.  Love as brothers- Now this one makes me a little leary at first.  I have three boys and most days they are wrestling and throwing each other on the floor and launching balls, spit, dirty socks or whatever might be the handiest or get the biggest reaction from their brother.  So I'm thinking Brotherly love, not sure I want someone showing me affection that way...But by the same token when my middle son broke his hand while I was out of town and he and his little brother were staying at grandma's my youngest son came to Grandpa the morning of the Dr's apprt that would reveal if his older brother would need surgery and he said to Grandpa with sensitivity and commitment, Grandpa if Collin needs me to be by his side today I will stay home from school to be with him.  Or maybe the most precious and few memories I hold dear between my oldest son when my middle son was born.  His dad had went home to get him and bring him up to the hospital so he could see his brother for the first time.  He walked in with a big smile and lots of anxiousness on his four and a half year old little face, plopped down on the wooden rocker next to my bed and his dad placed this new little brother in his arms.   He didn't say anything just gazed down at him with a smile and quietly began to sing "Jesus Loves Me," in the most gentle tender version of the song I have ever heard while big crocidile tears streamed down his little cheeks.  Yeah I want to love like that.  Brotherly love, -family love, love that builds off of agape love.  Agape love is the general love that God gives man for all people it is not necessarily intimate but of goodwill.  Brotherly love builds deep roots on agape love and propels a deep love; honor spins this love in motion.  You know the "Nobody picks on my little brother but me,"  kind of emotion.
4.  Be compassionate-Have common passion together, oneness passion, going to the ends for each other in a crazy; outrageous way to meet each others needs.  Creative love, rage with new ways to show love and affection.
5.  Be humble - Do all of this for one another without thought, regard or desire for fame or praise.  That's hard. Love for the sake of Love itself. 

So here is a great solid five step program for me be able to love others and for them to follow to be loving to me also. Love Rocks!!! Love on....

Crouching Sin

Genesis 4:6,7- Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry?  Why is your face downcast?  If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?  But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; its desire is to have you, but you must master it."  I have been meditating on these verses and the events that led Cain to the deadly jealousy within that made him commit the world's first murder and take the life out of his brother.  These instructions and guidance are given directly from God to Cain before he commits the crime, God tells him he must master it.  And I think about my life and how sin crouches with food, selfishness, lack of control, perfectionism, and people pleasing and I continously think "I must master this, I must master this, I must master this...."  And yes there are moments of mastering certain crouching sins, but there are those, like Cain, that I choose to allow them to have me...namely food or negative thinking or lack of trust in God himself...uhhhh I hate even typing that, I love God!  But that is the truth... the truth that I have not mastered sin, I cannot perfectly master sin.....but wait there is another verse that address this very subject as well.  Romans 6:14 "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace." This verse clearly states the hope that we have living after the death and reserrction of Jesus Christ,we do not live as Cain did.  Yes, we are the same fallen creatures who have chosen sin over God.  But God knew even in Cain's time that sin must be mastered and it was not going to happen in the human man.  And so he made a way.  He sent Jesus who fullfilled the law perfectly and mastered the sin that crouched around him.  But not only did he do this as an example for us and bring his Heavely Father glory but also to master sin for all mankind and give a way to live that is above the law.  Salvation.  If we have chosen Jesus Christ to be the sin master who lives within us we are freed from the law, not that the laws aren't good to follow but ultimately placing our trust in the graciousness of Jesus and walking with him will be walking right.  So I can in this moment and the moments when I feel, hear, and see sin crouching know that sin is not my master because I am under grace.

Where Healing Begins...

A Prayer for A little Girl Lost

Oh little girl locked deep inside

Unleash your fear give up your pride

It’s time for you to know the truth

Come out from underneath your bed and lay your head here on my chest

Open up the closet door run in my arms where it’s safe and warm

You never again must run and hide

Or cry alone there in the dark

It’s time to let it out my dear

Come close to me

Please do not fear

I am the Daddy that you never had

I’ve come to rescue you from all this past

That holds you down and stifles you

And give you back your stolen dreams

Dreams that once were pure and free

They still are here kept safely with me

I’ll give you back what was taken away

For the first time you will be free and say

“I love you Daddy thank you for coming.”

And you’ll here me whisper gently in your ear

“My sweetheart you were never alone I was always here.”

I know the world would do you harm.

I saw it the day the nails gave me the scars

But I took the nails for all your pain and grief

And knew that in my pain you would find relief

From this locked up, silenced, beaten soul

And to my love that will never let go.

So come now child Daddy’s here

To take away that little girls pain and fear.

The door’s unlocked, the lights are on, I’m here I’m waiting won’t you come?

Oh How He loves us...Oh

So I am pleading yesterday that this madness of perfection that I deeply struggle with would end...And here is the verse that I read this morning.  II Corinthians 13:11- "Aim for perfection, listen to my appeal, be of one mind, live in peace.  And the God of love and peace will be with you."  So God wants me to be a perfectionist? NO!!!  And it was so clear to me within this verse as I read "Aim for perfection..." God opens up the word and I see that I am to capitalize the word Perfection -Capital P- So I could reword this to say "Aim for Jesus," because he is the only perfection I have known, and that is doable.  Instead of aiming for a utopia state of being where the fall no longer encompasses my life here on earth, I am to aim for Perfection himself, Jesus- where one day I will, when the veil is lifted and eternity is my real time, be perfect. The second thing Paul states while writing this letter to the Corinthians is, listen to my appeal...And Paul has a lot to say- but I am led to his writing in Philippians 3 that says-"Not that I have already obtained all this or have been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus (Perfection) has taken hold of for me.  (Paul's appeal-listen up people! Especially you perfectionists out there!)  I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do, forgetting what is behind, and straining towards what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. He continues saying, "All who are mature should take such a view of things.  And if on some point you think differently that God will make it clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained.. He then encourages the Philippians to follow the example of living they have been taught because..."Many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. their destiny is destruction, their god is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame.  Their mind is on earthly things. but our citizenship is in heaven and we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables him (God-Perfection) to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body. ( We will be perfect one day!)"
So we can:

1. Aim for Perfection -JESUS
2. Listen to Paul's appeal to -PRESS ON-Press into JESUS
3. Be of one mind....Be connected and in relational right thinking with other members of the body of Christ...
4. Live in peace...Live in peace?  What? I am not happy about the dirt on my floor, the president's choices, the demands of my life, the constant battle outside and inside me...Live in peace...yeah right, Calgon take me away!!!!  But once again I believe that we can capitalize the word Peace and also replace it with that name that is above all names -JESUS-So the statement could read "Aim for Jesus, listen to my appeal-Press into JESUS, Be of one mind, and live in Jesus." He then ends the verse with a comforting thought that as we are aiming for Jesus, Pressing into Jesus, being connected to believers, and living in Jesus, that God who loves us and provides peace will be with us through the whole process.  So I end my thoughts today with a new way to think.  I can now look forward to living as a follower of Perfection.

The Other Present Hunger

So here it goes friend, letting the words appear on this page seems more painful than I can bear, but as I read "My resistance to pain is worse than the actual pain."  And so my fingers type

...I'm tired, no, I'm not tired, I am exhausted to the point of giving up at this perfection cycle I have been on for as long as I can remember. the "Other present hunger" within. not to eat to nourish the body, but the hunger that longs deeply inward to my core to be exactly how you, whoever you are, wants me to be.  Do you know what a pathetic game this is? Yet I the player continue to choose to get points on the board every single day.  I wake up with good intentions thanking God for inviting me into his creation by placing air inside my lungs and a foggy focused view as I open my eyes to the world outside of me.  And then it hits.  the needs of so many in my home, on the news, in my community, the messages of who i wish I were continually palying in my head. they are and all calling out in need.  I want to be all things to all of them but when after sipping through enough caffeine to get the motor running enough to fight through the madness I realize that it is a never winning battle... I give up and when I do- where for art thou oh food? Desire of my heart, love of my life? come hither to dance at your prey as you become mine....

To stop resisting the pain?  The pain that I cannot be all things to all people, and that if for an instant if I thought I could is the lion of pride itself devouring my inner being, to feel the feeling that you were not enough and that you hope to be enough every night so that you are not left again, to feel that unless I have my quoted mother's "Put your happy faces on, smile and look pretty girls!" I am nothing. my sad emotions, fearful thoughts, and anger are not valid to anyone so cover up and be who you are not.  To go back to the spot that shattered the 6th grade girl. where my beauty destroyed me. the girl who had the eyes of the boys and the silly secrets between the girls - going from top to bottom -hated, cursed, glared at, and silenced. To let go of the control AHHHHH! the control! and realize that people are not my pawns and I am not theirs and that yes there is a greater being inviting me in again and again with the in and out lifts of my chests to surrender... to letting go... to the place where food shrinks and i melt as he molds me into a whole person.  Yes this is where the inner revolution must begin.  Come Jesus for this passionate ever seeking you heart and teach me the things I do not know ...I believe- I come to give you my unbelief...This is my soul cry.

Recycled Love

This Sunday our pastor inverted an interesting question during his morning sermon.  "If we were as gentle and careful with each other as we are with going green to save the planet how different would our relationships...humanity be?"  I have been pondering this thought for a few days now...recycled love...what does that mean?  If I decided to "go green" with the people around me, especially the ones to whom I have a relationship with, what would the outcomes of my recycling efforts look like? Is recycled love better than new love? Can love and kindness be reused to make something new; a better emotional resource that can be shaped into another useful purpose?  I ponder this and say I think recycled love is a wonderful concept- like the love I received as a child from my grandmother. Thinking of that tiny lady in her pink night cap putting me to sleep while rubbing my petite back and singing the 'Pennies from Heaven song, as I drifted away into a peaceful sleep brings sheer joy to my heart.  That was gentle love in action given to me and it echoes in my heart as I too rub my boys back's and sing them into a dream state.  My grandmother has taken up residence in eternity over 11 years ago but the love keeps on giving in my heart.  There is a quote that says prayers are deathless.  How powerful to know that her prayers poured out in love over her family are very much alive today as I sit and type my thoughts, even though we are on different sides of the veil! Song of Solomon 8:6 reads, "Place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm, for love is a strong as death, its jealousy as unyielding as the grave.  It burns like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame.  Many waters cannot quench love; rivers cannot wash it away.  If one were to give all the wealth of his house for love; it would be utterly scorned." Love is powerful.  The love we give has the ability to burn like fire and to continue on never being washed away.  Old love. The love you see when a senior couple are walking along a sidewalk still holding hands and smiling..they have been giving out love to each other over and over again and it just keeps turning into something more; deeper; committed; eternal; one. As 30 somethings we get caught up in the romance, passion, the outside appearance, the excitement, the fast track, meddling with "affairs" of all different sorts, but those who hang on, who are gentle with their commitment "Til death do us part," experience something like that little triangle made with three arrows on the bottom of plastic water bottles. It doesn't end it keeps turning into more; being useful to the involved parties; husband, wife, and God.

Let's go another step further.  What if we take the parts of those intimate relationships that would be easier to just dispose of. The non Kodak moments that we would rather toss into a dark can never to be seen again. What if we instead believe that even the throw away parts of those relationships could be useful if turned into something else...where would we be?  In the living word of God the book of Isaiah talks clearly about "recycling"  the parts of us, the parts of our relationships that are not lovely. To begin with he states..Isaiah 61:3 "To bestow a crown of beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair."  So I can toss the ashes of my burning emotions, the grief of losing life's most valuable, and my most fearful; desperate moments into my hearts "recycle bin" and I, a believer of the Holy Spirit who is my helper will dump these mucky useless chains and turn them into beauty, gladness, and praise.  

Yesterday I toured the museum of African American Art.  Inside they had an entire display of baskets made from grasses dating back from the early 1800's to today.  Absolutely breathtaking designs and intricate work.  Who knew that grass could be used to make something so useful, decorative, and beautiful.  When I finished walking through the museum I visited the gift shop with wares from the African people.  Inside I noticed these funny looking lizards lined up on a glass shelf waiting for purchase by all of the tourists.  Looking closer I noticed how colorful and unique these little lizards were. Getting even closer, the eyesight is starting to fail, I noticed they were made from pop cans that had been cut up.  I chuckled inside as I thought how creative- our old pop cans can be used to make something simply fun and creative. Sometimes the garbage parts of our relationships must go under the refiners fire and become, through a gut wrenching process, a new way of thinking, doing, or acting. Like the grass that must be cut, dried, and through much work of the artisan, tightly woven back and forth until it begins to take shape becoming formed into a basket, useful to it's maker.  Thankfully there are those occasions when something that we are distasteful to about those we love most can simply be turned into a chuckle and loving laughter as the oil of gladness makes the argument, the clashing of opinions, or the "I'm in it to win it" mentality like a colorful little lizard made from a soda can!

I must admit..I'm incapable to recycle the yucks of myself and the connections of my loved ones on my own. Just as I in my own home and in capable of turning my used plastic bottles, soup cans, and outdated newspapers into something else.  I must gather them up and take them to the recycling bin.  Sure, I may try to muster up a "positive attitude" in the midst of utter madness in my soul, but it will eventually be known as counterfeit, useless to me and others and usually just as; if not more destructive than my original sorrow.  Through surrendering and repentance,I, as a follower of Christ, can allow the Holy Spirit living in my soul to take these recyclables that have piled up within, and he will form them into the useful tools promised in these verses.  We have all seen it, the sheer tragedy of ones life turned into that which we never thought it could be.  The good news is, life can be lived even though the tragedy is not erased.  I just finished Mary Beth Chapman's book, "Choosing to See." She has lived through such a grief I have not known, tragically loosing a child.  A must read. It is evident that her soul recycler has worked, not to remove the loss or replace the child, but to allow her to once again by clothing her with his handmade garment of praise, experience "joy" at their first born's wedding months after burying their precious daughter.  Enabled her from the depths of her being to communicate to us the sojourner how effective her Creator's truth has brought her through each hour since that day as he covers her with his oil of gladness in the human despair that she faces on earth..  And she looks forward in hope to a "green day" when she is rejoined with her daughter and the Giver of Life Himself, where they will receive the crown of beauty as the ashes are exchanged. 

So today's thought as the old saying goes is that what comes around goes around...what are you sending around?   Recycle love for a greener relationship tomorrow!

Sept. 9 2010

Today? Today.  Here I am writing with so much stirring inside it's hard to know where to begin.  You see I know me, my Savior who created my innmost being knows me, but you, the rest of the world you really don't know me..some of you do, sort of.  i guess. some of you have heard my story, some of you share life with me, some of you are blessed or sometimes cursed to closely be related to the daily happenings of my life here on planet earth..but no you really don't know me. my center and core the deep aches within, the desires unmet, the questions left to roam back and forth within my mind. the passions that give me energy and make me come alive over and over again.  you haven't seen the inner explosions of overwhelming love that burst forth inside my heart when I get hugs & kisses from my sons. You haven't felt the tidal wave rush of passionate love when my husband walks into a room.  You haven't experienced how I in those brief eternal moments of sheer worship grasp a small taste of how high and wide and deep and long God's love is for me and mine for him and yet ever growing as I sway from belief and he helping my unbelief.  You haven't known the utter fright eclipsing my smiling soul when I relive the pain from my past. the days when old lies victoriously worm their way back into my head and heart caressing me with feelings of complete defeat as I surrender to their screaming demands ...so here I am trying to be technologically savvy setting up my "blog" to share with the world or my world whatever that may consist of....me.