"Stuff It"

meet Spidey, my 13-yr.-old houseplant

Pss. 64:1 “Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy.”

Stuff It

I’ve been telling you about my emails targeting me? Well this morning’s email, once again, gave me a God-slap moment. It came right out and basically said, ‘stuff it’! Okay, it didn’t tell me to stuff it, that’s what it said I’m doing with my emotional baggage instead of surrendering the juice of the problems up to God.

I figured the reason a person likes reading my blog is that they connect with my blunt honesty of any given subject. I really try not to sugarcoat anything I’m experiencing; I lay it all out there for you to read. So why am I being told that I’m really stuffing my emotional baggage when it comes to God? I’m supposed to be getting rid of it all so I can heal, remember? Total surrender, remember?

Apparently, I’ve been stuffing it! I loved this line in my Bible Gateway email by Amy Carroll, she said it was a famous punch line so I’m not stealing it from her. 

“Denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.” 

There it is. I think I’m surrendering my emotional baggage all to God but really it’s a form of denial when I suppress the meat of the problem. God doesn’t want the orange; He wants the juice, pulp and all! He doesn’t want a lamb chop, He demands the entire Lamb! Wow! 

In other words, God doesn’t want our artsy fartsy lifestyle laid before Him, like our religiously reading of the Bible, our attending church, getting everything scripturally right, or our loving thy neighbor. Yes, these things are all well and good, but God wants our pains, the heart, the soul of man and all of the ugly portions, not just the package wrapped up neatly with a bow! We never give Him what keeps us awake at night, we give him our day, we give him all the cute parts that we think He’ll enjoy seeing from us.

I may read too much into things these days but the accuracy is chilling. Another example, I received my Neck Traction Device. An email came with a picture stating it had been delivered, but there was something missing from my purchase that I didn’t know I was supposed to get (maybe that free item had expired), there was a silk mask. You know the kind, the ones that gently go over your eyes for a better nights rest? It hides the light so you can sleep better. I didn’t get one. I thought, now I know why, I’m already wearing one! I may already have the Light in me, but I hide the rest thinking He can’t see the mush that’s still there. He let me know, HE SEES IT ALL!

Think of it like this. You are baggage on a conveyer belt at the airport, before you can go on to your next destination, you need to be scanned by an x-ray so you don’t get anything over on ‘the powers-that-be’. The one time I went on a plane I was a little surprised my pen that hides a very pointy letter opener inside, made it through the x-ray, the rifling of my purse, the checks and double checks, but my underwire bra set off the beep on the scanning process!

You see how I over think things? I’m thinking I’m baggage being scanned and everything is exposed but still, there is that ever so small portion that is hidden inside that might not be detected. I’m telling you, know that God is seeing your hidden emotional baggage! He detects it all. He knows when you’re giving it all to Him and when you’re hiding a small portion. Stop being so selfish and share the very depths of your being with Him; ALL of it!

How do we fix it? Well, it sounds like a tedious chore is at hand but I may be making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t think so. I seriously have work to do especially if I’m ever to be fully healed and rid of this lingering disease. First, I’m adding to my much-needed break. I need this time to look at the whole picture and reassess the ever-long journey I’ve placed myself on. And yes, I’ve taken quite a few breaks in the past forty days but for the wrong reasons. I have a renewed purpose. Don’t read too much into it, my breaks may not be what you’re thinking they mean. REST! I need rest and reassessment!

Psalm 62:5 says, “Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him” (NIV)

Second, I will strengthen my stance by surrendering everything to God and allow Him to be my rock when I’m unbalanced and trying to walk. I’m inviting Him to a feast and I’m not serving up toxic food in the form of a pig or just a spare rib, no, I’m offering him the entire lamb for sacrifice on the x-ray table so he can see the whole me.

Pss. 62:6 “He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved.”

Third finding shelter in His arms as the tears begin flowing downstream releasing denial into the river in Egypt. I am healed by His blood, I am strong in His arms, I am protected by his Light!

Pss. 62:8 “Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.”

I can tell you’re all intrigued by this journey of mine. If only to see my success because you’re a dear friend or a person who just needed a little spark to reassess their life. I’m your go-to person! Whatever you do, don’t tell me to just stuff it because I’ll tell you to get out of your own denial and unpack. You're home and now is the time to make sure your bag is empty so you can go to the REAL home that awaits you to be delivered. 

All praise and Glory to God! 

geese! 

I'm Back... With a Purpose

Micah 6:8  “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?”

I’m Back... With a Purpose

In the midst of my grief I found something. It was there all the time I just needed to grab hold of all that I knew I had in me and that is my FAITH! One to never let me down, God set upon me a new mission, one that I had strayed from but He brought me back through my faith.

Yesterday’s sermon was about the future and knowing your purpose in the here and now. It really touched me because I was snuggling up to my grief and looking for a promise in my tears. As usual I found it in a sermon cradled among truth.

Sometimes people feel scared, afraid they’re not doing all they can in the Lord’s eyes whether a florist, a doctor, a gardener or a janitor. Sometimes people feel that between resting on Sunday and going back to work on Monday is just a mundane chore they do to keep food on their plate. Really? You feel so unworthy that that is all you feel your purpose is in life? To put food on the table and pay bills?

If in the mundane you see purpose, your inner essence and being will come to life like a newly planted spring garden. The florist feels like it is just a job organizing and arranging the flowers while making money, but in essence of completing her purpose she is touching the lives of other people. How you might ask? When you’re lying in the hospital and a flower arrives, how does that make you feel? You’re not thinking of the person who is serving a purpose in bringing that arrangement to life. Instead you’re smiling and feeling good! This person was touched by the florist and didn’t even give her a second thought. At a funeral, the florist is reaching into your realm and making you feel love and beauty surround you in a dark moment of despair.

How about the nurse? Are you thinking of her dedication to serving her purpose in life? No, I imagine all you are thinking about is her poking and prodding and how annoying it is to lose control of YOU and YOUR faculties. The nurse is serving her purpose in bringing you your medical needs and see that you are comfortable on this, as you see it, demeaning journey.

How about the janitor? Are you thinking of their job as fulfilling a purpose? Of course not, again you’re thinking of you and how you’re just glad that there is toilet paper on the TP holder after you’re done your business. You don’t think of anyone as fulfilling a purpose but as I see it, we’re all here fulfilling the purpose that God has set for us.

Sometimes people feel that they’re not doing enough in fulfilling their purpose and get emotionally drained thinking what next? What will I do? They worry needlessly when they should take their need to God and He WILL fulfill your need in serving His purpose. Remember, He put you here for a reason and that is to serve His purpose.

When people get distracted from their purpose they begin to lose faith. They don’t want something higher than themselves controlling what their purpose is so they wander into selfishness and hold tightly to materialistic views and they go on in life serving nothing but their ego.

MY purpose is to write. Even when I feel like my writing isn’t reaching out to someone, that one person will let me know that I’ve reached into his or her heart in some way and thus fulfilling my purpose. I lost sight of that for a while thinking there was really no reason to write but in the layers of grief I found my writing to not only be essential to the my healing but to be substantial in finding my purpose while helping others.

I serve God through my writing. He blessed me with the talent to write. He had me training on many levels all of my life in my cleaning houses for those who were often too disabled to do it for themselves, taking care of the elderly when they couldn’t nurse themselves, tending to the lonely widow who just needed friendship. God used me so my heart would know and understand compassion for all and then my writing would be used to relay a message of the promise that He had shown to me.

I’ve spent enough time in my grief and now it is time to fulfill my purpose in serving God. You do know that if you are not serving God, you are only serving yourself? We live in the ‘all about me’ generation and people are not so happy with the sun not rising for THEM! The world should turn and bow for THEM. They seek ‘things’ outside getting lost in pain and sorrow and never look at the healing that is right there on the inside waiting for them to embrace.

We all have a purpose in this life and until you understand what the purpose is and that EVERY single person has one, maybe the world would change. We can’t let evil scare us into not seeing a reason for everything under the sun.

Jesus was a carpenter for most of His life. Do you think he sat there twiddling his thumbs asking God what his purpose was in life? I don’t think so, he knew God was shaping him into a man who would carve out a nation, build a world of love out of the sands of time, hammer into the people a voice that would be heard for millennia, seal the message and purpose with nails so that the blood would set us free. Once Jesus understood His purpose, His life was fulfilled.

Luke. 21:34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.