Hiding

Why do you hide from me - have I failed to let you know that my love for you is unconditional. It's the model of how God loves us. You can never make such a mess that my love evaporates. This fact is not a license to test the theory however. In fact, hopefully, just the opposite. I love you so faithfully, that you would never want to reciprocate with a test, well, that's what I hope. I'm betting there are voices in your head, maybe voices outside of your head, broken people with families shattered that might say you can lose your mother's love. Not this mother's you can't. Oh, I can be mad, disappointed, crushed, but absent of love - it's not happening. I love you, not because of anything you do or don't do, not for what you were or are or will become. I simply love you because God placed you in my life to be loved. You are His creation - born from the deepest most pure human love on this planet. Your dad and I love each other thick. We are real and true and have always been. We are faithful without any schemes or deceit. You are the result. Three beautiful precious daughters. Blends of our worst and our best. Nothing imaginable could change that or take that away. I love you. Deeply. With a fraction of the strength, but all of the ingredients of His love for us.

Faith & Doubt

The best thing about traffic in the last few years is that you are no longer held captive...that's why it's so great that I didn't have a 35 minute commute before now. Now I can use those 35 minutes to learn. This morning it was Greg Boyd....how he has changed my walk. I love that his head is stuffed full of knowledge and theology and facts and theories, but more, I love that his heart is 99.9999999 % genuine. I guess the only 100% would be in Christ, but Greg Boyd is close, well at least from my seat he is. I'm sure he is as flawed as everyone else....at home where it's safe to raise your voice and lose your temper and disengage. Anyway, he was teaching on doubts and faith and I'm only 20 minutes in, but I get it. God doesn't want robots that force themselves to believe because they want to. He wants the Jacob wrestlers. The Genesis 32:26 kind of people who wrestle out every thing with God and still believe. I want you girls to be those people. I want you to bring all your junk to God and dump it on the floor and sort it out a piece at a time. He can handle it. Actually, only he can handle it. Lately that's how it's been for me. Daddy left his job and I'm still here, how does that work. He hates it here so much that he won't come back, but he left me here. It doesn't add up. If you love someone, how do you leave them in hell on earth? I don't think he did the math, but God knows. He's here with me on the hard days. The days where I cover my face and pretend he can't see me 'cause I can't see him. He pursues me with such a passion some days that the events disguised in 'coincidence wrap' are too much for my brain to comprehend. Sometimes I just don't know how the atheists do it. Do they live all of life in a brown paper bag. How do you deny a creator, a reigning king, the whispers in your head that have no resemblance to your character - impossible. Anyway, it's been really hard lately and I want you to know that when everyone else has failed me, HE is here. He watches me kick and scream and pout and cry. He watches me try to be independent. He sends messages through His word and when I'm this stubborn and I won't even crack it open he uses others: aholyexperience.com, podcasts, tweets and facebook and eventually, i soften just enough to hear. Just enough to know that He's close - that I'll make it if I just lean into him a little harder than I did yesterday. He will help, we will survive. Wait, Pray, Wait, Pray, Wait, Wait, Pray, Cry, Wait....then there will be some light, some hope that this particular wrestling match is complete.

I can't remember anything else.....

It's funny how I really can't remember being without Him. The memory is clear in my mind. I'm in a stroller I think and I'm without a doubt eating sixlets. I'm eating them by chewing through the celophane and sucking the chocolate out. Wasn't my mom watching, didn't she worry about me choking. Is this the one thing she didn't worry about? I think I'm 3 or 4 and the question overtakes me like fog. The question that is painted on my mind for the rest of my life maybe. "What was here before God?" The picture in my mind is strange and I still don't really understand it, but like the question it is crystal clear. It is an empty planet, somewhat like a sci-fi futuristic film where life is all but destroyed. But in my picture there are "pipes...." I think they are plumbing pipes and that is the beginning in my head. I'm sure some gifted scholar could interpret this as how I saw the "beginning" or the basic structure. Probably somehow tied to construction. Who cares? It's really cool to me. I see this empty place and I want to know what came before God, who made Him, how did this whole place get started. I think I realized that God made it, but who made Him? I guess in a way that was the beginning of the relationship. It wasn't a quest at all. I didn't need an answer to a question too deep for 4 year old brain cells. It was just the start. It was as if God said, "OK, I'm here!" He grabbed my hand and just started somewhere in the middle of us. I can't remember Him not being there really. Oh sure, there are periods where our relationship is strained, but as for not being here - it hasn't really ever felt that way. Is that how it is for everyone? Does everyone just feel Him? Know His Presence from the beginning? Or was I marked? It is it something special that I have - a gift. I wish it was, but I don't think so. I think maybe the gifting is in the protection and realization of it. As a preschooler I knew Him. I loved church. I loved His Word. I loved His love. So, the question seems like a doubt, but that is the illusion. The question in my preschool mind is a by-product of the strongest reality of my life. I am so acutely aware of God, so absolutely sure that He is there and here that my mini mind has to ask the "why" or "how" of childhood. Not how did the stuff in the world get here? Not even is there reallllly a God? But God's presence is so unquestionable to me that I ask, what was here before Him, how did He get here. You don't ask where did this bouquet of flowers come from if you don't really see the bouquet of flowers in the vase. And when you see, smell and touch the flowers, you don't really doubt they are there. You don't think it's positive thinking or hope. You know you see real flowers sitting in front of you and they are beautiful and they take your breath away and so it is with me and Him. Never doubted his existence in the beginning. He was right there with me. Always has been. Always will be. But the doubts do creep in. They come to an older, tainted mind, polluted by the world, corrupted by the enemy, the one who deceives and lies and steals and destroys. That is poison on this page. This page is about his beauty. He is with me. He is with you. If you aren't sure, you've been deceived. You can get back to where you know it. Think back. I would give my life for people to know that. God is here. God loves you. You can trust Him. You can't figure it out, cause it's way to big for our mini minds.....just know He is God. Be Still & Know that I AM God - Psalm 46:10